"The Order of Time" by Carlo Rovelli

[tariki]

On the cover of the book Carlo Rovelli is termed "The Poet of Physics" and for once such book cover claim is not exaggeration. And given my mark of 5 out of 100 in my school Physics exam it is poetry I need rather than algebraic equations and constant reference to quantum leaps. Poetry. Our world is one of "becoming", not "being", of "events", not "things". Inter-being. Or as the poet (Carlo Rovelli) himself expresses it:- "A kiss not a stone". And humour too. Here is Mr Rovelli explaining that such events do not follow a precise time that is unvariable:- "The events of the world do not form an orderly queue, like the English. They crowd around chaotically, like Italians."

The prose of the author is humane. As an example, here he speaks of another physicist who he has admired but has now passed on (or passed back perhaps?) Rovelli writes that he "can no longer tell him I believe that he was the first to come close to the heart of the mystery of quantum gravity. Because he is no longer here – here and now. This is time for us. Memory and nostalgia. The pain of absence. But it isn’t absence that causes sorrow. It is affection and love. Without affection, without love, such absences would cause us no pain. For this reason, even the pain caused by absence is, in the end, something good and even beautiful, because it feeds on that which gives meaning to life."

This is fine. Humane. Science meets our humanity.

Next stop the "Shobogenzo Uji" of the Zen Master Dogen, who seemed to anticipate much of this in 13th century Japan, in his famous essay "Being-Time". Being is time, and time is being. Dogen sought his very own time and place as we must continually seek and live in ours. The journey itself is home.