byCarlo Rovelli translated by Juan Manuel Salmerón Arjona
At 260+ pages, this is the longest book by Rovelli I’ve read (the other two are Siete Breves Lecciones de Fisica and
El orden del tiempo) and the least satisfactory one. Maybe it is translation (the other two were translated by Francisco J. Ramos Mena), maybe repetitiveness, or maybe the contrast between well-explained and left-pretty-much-unexplained. For instance: Rovelli says, half-jokingly, that a theory is not credible if its equations don’t fit on a T-shirt. Fair enough. I like that. Then he puts the equations of loop quantum gravity theory on an image of a T-shirt (Fig. 7.7) without explaining anything about these equations. Not fair at all, and not even funny. In fact, Reality (2014) precedes The Order of Time (2017) and I have an impression that in the latter book Rovelli was able to address the shortcomings of the former.
Still, Reality is a fascinating read. I might not care that much about spin foam but I loved the historical bits, especially those on Dirac, Matvei Bronstein, and Rovelli’s recurring theme, Democritus.
byEmanuele Trevi translated by Juan Manuel Salmerón Arjona
From an Italian writer I never heard about comes this homage to his friends, two other Italian writers I also never heard about. It may not sound terribly exciting, but the book it totally worth reading. For those who hates biographies: it’s not a biography. (Ditto for those who loves biographies.) A memoir? An essay? A novel? Who cares? I got intrigued with the protagonists, Rocco Carbone and Pia Pera — no, these are not made-up names. Especially with the latter, who translated to Italian works of Pushkin, Lermontov, Chekhov and even protopope Avvakum, among others, and whose Lo’s Diary is now on my to-read (when?!) list.
Tendría que haberme apresurado a tomar notas, a retener algo antes de que fuera demasiado tarde. Como flores de manzano que la brisa se lleva, también los requerdos de las personas a las que conocimos tan bien que la costumbre se volvió un reflejo condicionado vuelan y se alejan con una rapidez inconcebible. Pensamos que hemos acumulado muchos, que son tan numerosos y vívidos que no se extinguirán nunca, y de pronto vemos que no nos queda en la mano más que un revoloteo de imágenes inciertas y fugitivas. Formas de memoria tan insignificantes y menudas que equivalen al olvido.
byCarlo Rovelli translated by Francisco J. Ramos Mena
I remember how excited I was, when I first read A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, to learn about light cones. Then I forgot almost all about them, apart from that there is a place outside of a light cone called “elsewhere”. Now, reading this book, I had a happy reencounter with light cones. This time, what surprised me most was the illustration showing that the orientation of the cones could even be like this:
The Order of Time is a bit longer than Seven Brief Lessons but still quite short and almost as easy to read. I cannot say I’m convinced by everything Rovelli says, but that’s the reality — and, for me, the beauty — of science. The way he explains some of his ideas, like the one that the world is not a collection of things but of events, is sheer poetry.
La differenza fra cose e eventi è che le cose permangono nel tempo. Gli eventi hanno durata limitata. Un prototipo di una «cosa» è un sasso: possiamo chiederci dove sarà domani. Mentre un bacio è un «evento». Non ha senso chiedersi dove sia andato il bacio domani. Il mondo è fatto di reti di baci, non di sassi.
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La diferencia entre cosas y eventos es que las cosas permanecen en el tiempo. Los eventos, en cambio, tienen una duración limitada. Un prototipo de «cosa» es una piedra: podemos preguntarnos dónde estará mañana. Mientras que un beso es un «evento»: no tiene sentido preguntarse adónde habrá ido el beso mañana. El mundo está hecho de redes de besos, no de piedras.
(Translated by Francisco J. Ramos Mena)
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The difference between things and events is that things persist in time; events have a limited duration. A stone is a prototypical “thing”: we can ask ourselves where it will be tomorrow. Conversely, a kiss is an “event”. It makes no sense to ask where the kiss will be tomorrow. The world is made up of networks of kisses, not of stones.
(Translated by Erica Segre and Simon Carnell)
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The book is written to intrigue you. Or, at least, this seems to be its main purpose. I’d say The Order of Time is more concerned with history and philosophy of time rather than (hard) physics or math of time. For more in-depth (but still accessible) treatment of physical aspects of time, you’ll need to look, er, elsewhere. I recommend The Arrow of Time by Coveney and Highfield as well as the aforementioned Hawking’s classic.
For those who prefer listening, there is an audiobook read by the man who played Hawking in Hawking, the one Benedict Cumberbatch.
byCarlo Rovelli translated by Francisco J. Ramos Mena
It’s the story of my life. I first saw this book in the library, at the new books stand by the entrance. Even browsed through it, thinking that I might fancy to read it. Then went to another floor briefly. Sure enough, when I came back, it was gone.
I never saw it again at the new books stand (well, that was a couple of years ago, so it’s not new anymore) and I forgot the name of the author. So, one day I waded into the physics section and... found it. Now that I know the name, I can tell you: it was next to other books by Rovelli.
I could have swallowed it in one evening but I somehow managed to prolong the pleasure for almost a week. Even if you hated physics in school — especially if you hated physics in school — I promise, you’ll enjoy this book. And if you are still in school: the same. Till now, I had no clue who Rovelli the scientist is — one of the founders of loop quantum gravity theory, of which he talks in Grains of space, that’s who, but this fact is almost tangential to the way Rovelli tells the story. To write about complex stuff in such an easy language is a gift, and the author is not afraid to use it. According to Wikipedia, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics was translated into 42 languages, which makes it the most translated Italian book after Pinocchio. I read it in Spanish. I suppose the original is as a joy to read.
La teoría más hermosa (The most beautiful of theories)
Los cuantos (The quanta)
La arquitectura del cosmos (The architecture of the cosmos)
Partículas (Particles)
Granos de espacio (Grains of space)
La probabilidad, el tiempo y el calor de los agujeros negros (Probability, time and the heat of black holes)
My friend, colleague and bandmate Sergio presented me with this book when we last met on occasion of my leaving for Fuerteventura. He said that it is kind of classic and it comes from Trieste. Trieste!
I had an uneasy relationship with this place. Until 1993, the only thing I knew about Trieste was that it was the name of bathyscaphe that reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench. I was not even sure in which country Trieste the city was. The history of Trieste suggests that I was not alone in that. Then I spent most of 1994 right there. During that year, I discovered Italian food, Italian coffee, proper gelato, Jovanotti, Cab Calloway, the World Wide Web, the naturist beach, Dolomiti, Venice, Milan, Sardinia, Hungary and, finally, Leeds. That’s right: as soon as I set my foot in Trieste, I was trying to get away from there. And as soon as I left it for good, I started missing it. The phrases I brought from my time in Trieste include piccoli problemi and pozor na psa. Where were we, anyway?
Ah, forget that. No special Triestine connection is actually needed to enjoy Zeno’s Conscience. The style reminds me of Kharms. The (anti)hero is a really lovable type. And who would have thought that sixty tons of copper sulphate could be made into a running gag?
I have never suffered from miserliness, and Giovanna immediately had her glass filled, to the brim. Before she could finish saying thanks, she had drained it, and she immediately cast her bright eyes on the bottle. So it was she herself who gave me the idea of getting her drunk. But that was no easy undertaking!
I couldn’t repeat exactly everything she said to me, in her pure Triestine dialect, after she had drained all those glasses, but I had the profound impression of being with a person to whom, if I hadn’t been distracted by my own concerns, I could have listened with pleasure.
First of all, she confided to me that this was precisely the way she liked to work. Everybody in this world should be entitled to spend a couple of hours every day in just such a comfortable chair, facing a bottle of good brandy, the kind that doesn’t cause any ill effects.
In my post from two years ago, I have mentioned this book. Last week, I actually have found time to read it (in English).
Prime numbers are divisible only by 1 and themselves. They stand in their place in the infinite series of natural numbers, squashed in between two others, like all other numbers, but a step further on than the rest. They are suspicious and solitary, which is why Mattia thought they were wonderful.
In his first year Mattia had studied the fact that among the prime numbers there are some that are even more special. Mathematicians call them twin primes: they are pairs of prime numbers that are close to one another, almost neighbours, but between them there is always an even number that prevents them from really touching. Numbers like 11 and 13, like 17 and 19, 41 and 43. If you have the patience to go on counting, you discover that these pairs gradually become rarer.
Mattia thought that he and Alice were like that, two twin primes, alone and lost, close but not close enough really to touch one another. He had never told her that.
Of course, the tragic loneliness of the two protagonists is nobody’s fault but their own. Yet the author made me to empathise and sympathise with Alice and Mattia. Especially with the latter who must be simply unbearable in the flesh. Instead of an unlikely happy end, Giordano gives us a much better thing: hope. Highly recommended.
Written in Italian as Romanzo russo. Fiutando i futuri supplizi and translated into English by Allan Cameron, it does read as if Bulgakov authored it. (Mind you, I am not the only one who noticed that. Look no further than the caption on the cover, which I kept ignoring until today.) Also, the book’s very appearance is that of samizdat. The action begins in Moscow on 7 November 1987. (How remarkable, I thought, I remember all too well what I was doing on that very day.) The events develop in the course of the next three years in Moscow and Baku. At one point, we follow the heroes to the Krasnaya Presnya bath house. (Insert here my memories of that place back then. No, I don’t miss those times or places. Actually I do a bit, safe in the knowledge that I am not going back. Shudder.) Authentic. (Authentic? Yes, authentic.) Gripping. Well-crafted. (Insert more clichés here.) Thoroughly recommended.
It’s time we left the Yugo-Zapadny district and went to the Lenin Library. We’ll take the underground, of course. The end of the line is right here — just a short walk away. Why not take the same carriage as Tanya. Here she is seated in a corner: a chubby, well-built girl with a bagful of textbooks and notebooks on her knees... What was that? No, you cannot sit beside her. The train is packed at this time of day; it is her good fortune that she managed to find a place. However, we can get inside her head and listen to her thoughts. This is no problem from a technical point of view, and if we don’t exploit this possibility to the full, what the hell are we doing here?
