Seven Brief Lessons on Physics

The author is a master of making complicated science understandable to general public, a little book presented a very big and clear picture of where physics stands at the beginning of 21st century. Hope it will inspire more people to help solve the remaining fundamental mysteries of nature.

Anybody whose read a book or watched a documentary popularizing science will be familiar with the concepts in this publication. What stands out is Rovelli's style of being all at once poetic, clear and informative while engaging.It is currently 2021, and this book dates back to 2016, and there's been a lot of progress in all fields of science since this book was first published. In that regard it is dated in terms of some of the hard facts and theories presented, but the basic philosophy of how to approach science is still rather fresh and very understandable.It's not a very thorough book on any one topic, is rather brief, but again is meant for the common person to understand some of the basic approaches physicists take when tackling the really big problems in science, and more specifically physics.A fun little book. Check it out.

It’s Not What You ThinkBy Bob Gelms I have two science books that, over the years, have become my favorites, The Elegant Universe and The Field. I have just found a third, Carlo Rovelli’s Seven Brief Lessons on Physics. Keep reading, it’s not what you think.First of all I have to tell you that there isn’t any math in the book. There is one equation that Mr. Rovelli prints just to show you what it looks like. It’s not very famous unless you are already a physicist. In the preface he states, “These lessons were written for those who know little or nothing about modern science. Together they provide a rapid overview of the most fascinating aspects of the great revolution that has occurred in physics in the twentieth and twenty first century…” In the spirit of Mr. Rovelli’s book, physics is the concrete explanation of the magic of the universe. It is the search for the truth about how everything in the universe operates interdependently on a grand scale (galaxies) and on the minute scale (electrons, protons, neutrons, quarks, gluons, etc.) This search, at times, has been fraught with the real danger of losing your life. Galileo was almost burned at the stake, commuted to life imprisoned under house arrest, for simply saying that the Earth revolved around the Sun. Scientists in the twentieth century are a little better off. The book is very short. If you have the print version, it’s 81 pages long, with only seven chapters called lessons. It starts at the beginning of the twentieth century with, next to Isaac Newton, the most important physicist in all of history, Albert Einstein. Einstein’s theories are simply and elegantly explained in plain non-scientific language. The culmination of his work is called A General Theory of Relativity, in addition to three or four other papers that were glossed over and initially laughed at.Once the scientific community caught up with Einstein’s brain they were struck dumb with the beauty and simplicity of his vision for the operation of the universe. It has always struck me curious that when he won the Nobel Prize it wasn’t for relativity (E=MC2). It was for one of those glossed over papers on the nature of light. He did all of his work on relativity and the photoelectric effect in 1905, when he was 26 years old. Over the years, he became a towering giant in the history of science while remaining a gentle and kind man. The second lesson covers the exact opposite of Einstein’s theories. Planck, Bohr, and Heisenberg all contributed in some degree to the theory of the littlest “things” in the universe, which came to be called quantum mechanics. It deals with atoms and the particles that make them up, showing how they interact with the ever-changing landscape around and in them. Then all hell broke loose.It seems that the rules and regs that describe perfectly Einstein’s big universe of galaxies, stars, solar systems and planets do not work if you apply those rules and regs to the little world of quantum mechanics. Conversely if you take the rules and regs of the little universe of quantum mechanics and apply them to Einstein’s big universe you will find that they don’t work. WELL. Both theories contradict one another and they shouldn’t because they both work perfectly in their own space and time. The big prize in physics these days is to find the link between the two because it is inherent in both theories that there be something that draws them together. Einstein called it the unified field theory and he tried to find it his whole life. He failed. Lessons One, Two and Seven are the far and away the most interesting and most important in the book. The other essays cover more popular topics like time, black holes, probability, particles, and a lesson called Grains of Space which is a brief explanation of a theory founded by Mr. Rovell, himself a theoretical physicist. In it, he attempts, I think, to reconcile the big with the small worlds of physics. It is called loop quantum gravity and it’s where general relativity meets quantum mechanics. In many ways the most interesting of all the essays is the last one. It’s simply called Ourselves. This is where Mr. Rovelli attempts to equate us, homo sapiens, to the interworking of the universe. We are all made of stardust put together using the immutable laws of nature. Our bodies conform to how the atoms we are made of obey quantum mechanics and the way in which we pass through time and space. It is utterly fascinating. I had an “oh wow” moment. I’d like to close with Mr. Rovelli’s words. “Here, on the edge of what we know, in contact with the ocean of the unknown, shines the mystery and the beauty of the world. And it’s breathtaking.”

Requires a high level of curiosity about physics but easily understood. And satisfying for low to mid level student of physicsEnjoy!

Very short essays on major areas of modern physics. The more philosophical insights are interesting, but the discussion of physics is superficial. I’m sure that was the intent, but be aware of this before purchasing

As the review title suggests, this was a good quick read. I felt it was too short, not because he left things unsaid but because I wanted more.

This brief, beautifully written book is not only a clear and profound discussion of the greatest achievements of modern physics, it is also a literary masterpiece. Rovelli's discussion of the great breakthroughs of modern physics covers familiar terrain--Einstein's theories of relativity, the development of quantum physics, and more recent theories that will eventually lead to the long-anticipated final theory-- and does not break new ground. Readers familiar with developments in physics in the 20th and 21st Centuries will find little new here. But what they will find are clear and elegant lessons about the meaning of these breakthroughs and why they matter. Rovelli's essays are among the clearest and most comprehensible summaries of the astonishing breakthroughs in modern physics that any reader will find anywhere. If one wants to acquaint one's self with the most profound breakthroughs in physics, these essays are a great place to start. Rovelli has a gift, a teacher's gift, to explain the most complex ideas in a way that a non-specialist can comprehend while still conveying the enormous consequences of the great ideas he discusses.But beyond being a wonderful discussion of the greatest ideas of science, this little book is above all a literary masterpiece. It is beautifully written, deeply human, and, ultimately, takes science to the level of poetry. Rovelli's essays convey the grandeur of the quest to understand our universe, and, beyond that, they discuss, in beautiful prose, the human significance of this quest. If you love science, and you love literature, do yourself a favor and buy this little book. It is profound, lucid, and deeply moving. It is about the meaning of life itself, and it is wonderful.

Perfect for the science/math-curious, and still nice for the already science/math-comfortable.It's an engaging & fast read.

I loved this book as someone without a science background. Esoteric ideas are presented simply and are easy to understand. The book is short enough to distill essential ideas but leaves you wanting to read and learn more. Recommend!

A very good summary of the current stage of Physics, with some personal inputs from the author.

El libro contiene 7 lecciones de física que posiblemente hoy en día sean de las más relevantes sobre la física. Está escrito de tal manera que cualquiera pueda leerlo. Sin embargo, si ya conoces de física: relatividad, teoría cuántica, el modelo estándar y termodinámica, entonces probablemente ya conozcas los contenidos del libro.

For non physics person to appreciate the magic of modern scientific reality

J'ai lu des tas de livres sur ce sujet, ai travaillé au CERN, et ce livre sort du lot par sa clarté exprimée en peu de mots et quelques figures. Je compte le recommander à mon entourage car c'est de loin l'exposé le plus facile à lire que j'ai lu sur ces sujets complexes. Chapeau bas à l'auteur, vraiment!! Je vais lire le reste de ses livres sans aucun doute! A lire absolument!