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    Seven Brief Lessons on Physics
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    Seven Brief Lessons on Physics
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    Seven Brief Lessons on Physics
    Audiobook1 hour

    Seven Brief Lessons on Physics

    Published by Penguin Random House Audio

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    This playful, entertaining, and mind-bending introduction to modern physics briskly explains Einstein's general relativity, quantum mechanics, elementary particles, gravity, black holes, the complex architecture of the universe, and the role humans play in this weird and wonderful world. Carlo Rovelli, a renowned theoretical physicist, is a delightfully poetic and philosophical scientific guide. He takes us to the frontiers of our knowledge: to the most minute reaches of the fabric of space, back to the origins of the cosmos, and into the workings of our minds. The book celebrates the joy of discovery.  "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," Rovelli writes. "And it's breathtaking."

    Editor's Note

    Fall in love with physics…

    An entertaining (and mind-opening) introduction to everything from quantum mechanics and Einstein's general relativity to black holes and the vibrations of time. Sound intimidating? Not in Rovelli’s hands. He makes the concepts accessible, while making it impossible not to get caught up in the joys of curiosity and discovery. Bonus: It clocks in at just an hour and forty-five minutes.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateMar 1, 2016
    ISBN9780399567384
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for Seven Brief Lessons on Physics

    4/5

    551 ratings36 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Lovely translation of fluid and inspiring prose ideas outlining complicated and sophisticated ideas clearly. I think some of the other reviews are a bit harsh although I agree it's not a beginners guide to Physics. I don't think it's meant to be either.
    • 5/5
      Poetic view of the UniverseCarlo Rovelli conveys the beauty of the universe and our often feeble attempts to quantify it into formulae which nevertheless still have a mathematical grace to them. You won't completely understand concepts such as the General Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics from this slim volume, but you will at least begin to appreciate some of the mystery behind them and why others devote their lives to exploring them.#ThereIsAlwaysOne13th edition (my reading copy) of this book and publisher Riverhead Books still hasn't fixed this typo at the bottom of page 28?"And in every direction in which we look, this it what happens."
    • 5/5
      Remarkable, yet all too brief book that beautifully describes the state of physics and our knowledge of the universe as it stands today. Spends a little too much time on history and not enough on actual science, but still manages to concisely describe some pretty heavy concepts. I really enjoyed the last chapter. Well worth the hour or two that it takes to read.
    • 3/5
      Theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli is head of the Quantum Gravity group at Aix-Marseilles University in southern France. His unlikely NY Times best-selling book is a translation of a collection of essays he wrote for the Italian business newspaper, Il Sole24 Ore, in order to bring to laypersons the wonder and beauty of modern science. It eschews all of the mathematics and almost all of the justification for what we think physics tells us about the universe. Rovelli very ambitiously begins with the general theory of relativity and writes an additional chapter each on the topics, in order, of quantum mechanics, cosmology, elementary particles, quantum gravity, the heat of black holes and, finally, to the place of humans in all of this. Given the immensity of the subject matter, it does not seem possible that the task can be accomplished in only just over eighty small pages. That brevity is one of characteristics that have made the book so popular. Another is the fact that Rovelli often uses near-poetry and evocative allusions in his descriptions. Consider what he says about particles:Even if we observe a small, empty region of space in which there are no atoms, we still detect a minute swarming of these [miniscule moving wavelets]. There is no such thing as a real void, one that is completely empty. Just as the calmest sea looked at closely sways and trembles, however slightly, so the fields that form the world are subject to minute fluctuations, and it is possible to imagine its basic particles have brief and ephemeral existences, continually created and destroyed by these movements.Descriptions like this can convey the essence of the concept to readers whose own understanding of physics is almost surely Aristotelian. Rovelli has jumped his audience at least two scientific paradigms beyond the knowledge brought by the typical reader, but he does so in a way that is far more comfortable that would be a more scientific explanation. For my money, I would prefer to be provided with some evidence or logical justification for this strange picture of the world. For me, allure of science, and of physics in particular, is in the voyage more so than the destination. While lots of people consider themselves fans of science, very few are interested in actually learning it. For them, never mind - Rovelli presents a very poetical version of modern physics, appealing to the artist in the reader and stimulating the imagination, but providing none of the evidence in the form of experiments, mathematics, or reason that would connect these seemingly impossible conclusions to their justifications. Seems to me to take most of the fun out of it! One could also argue that his viewpoint of particle physics and cosmology is parochial, giving lots of space to his own specialty, loop quantum gravity, but omitting another forefront viewpoints, including the string theory of particles.
    • 4/5
      As a non-scientist, I found most very challenging but am glad I read it, if only for quantum physics and how black holes contract til they explode out thus showing how our universe was created along with many others. Einstein's theory of relativity was explained well but much was too hard for me!
    • 4/5
      Brief, poetic and magically simple expositions of concepts like gravity waves, the curvature of space, and general relativity. An excellent book!
    • 4/5
      These elegantly written brief essays are both illuminating and inspiring. If you weren't fully aware of how remarkable Einstein was, you will find out. Likewise with Bohr and others. Physicists are remarkable even when their physics is less than clear to the likes of me.My favourite lesson was the very first one on the astounding elegance of Einstein's equations. The lesson in which I learned the most was the sixth on probability, time, and the heat of black holes. Who knew the explanation for heat and heat transfer could be so important? The final essay, alas, goes beyond physics per se and weakens markedly as it drifts away from the rough ground of physics. But six fine essays out of seven makes this still an easy book to recommend.
    • 3/5
      A nice brief and very readable book on principles of physics and the universe. I contrasted this to a book I recently finished on dark matter and dark energy that was so technical as to make it not understandable. Rovelli had a way in this book of making some complex principles fluid and basic in plain language. He ends the book with some interesting observations of mankind, our role in the universe, and our likely eventual demise.
    • 5/5
      This is a beautiful little book, a collection of essays written for an Italian newspaper to explain some topics in modern physics. His first lesson is entitled "The most beautiful of theories" and is an elucidation of Einstein's general theory of relativity, explained as an evolution of thought about how objects fall. The second lesson is "Quanta"; the familiar story of quantum mechanics and the unsettling notion that the world is described by probability. The next lesson discusses space and cosmology, and the fourth lesson touches on particle physics. The fifth is called "grains of space" and is an attempted explanation of quantum gravity, a very difficult topic. Lesson six is the most profound and thought stimulating, on the nature of time, probability, and the relation of time to heat flow in black holes. The last lesson considers consciousness, a favorite topic of physicists even though their training is not in human physiology. It is the least successful, but still beautifully written. He briefly discusses Giulio Tononi, working on his integrated information theory of consciousness, described in his book PhiI read this on a KLM flight from Amsterdam, finishing it in about 90 minutes. I am familiar with some of the topics, and I always enjoy science written for generalists.
    • 4/5
      So, I am reading Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli, which I am finding a little more simplistic in its exploration of these amazing concepts than I had hoped for, but it is an amazingly short book, so I should have known. But it is a good refresher, clearly written and I will finish it for the occasional pearl. For example, up popped a literary gem. I did not know, or perhaps I forgot, that the term "quark" comes from Finnegan's Wake: "Three quarks for Muster Mark!" An apparently random inspiration from "a seemingly nonsensical word in a nonsensical phrase" by James Joyce. Cool! But the book should have gone on to mention a favorite of mine--the silly names for quarks (the small particles that make up protons and neutrons). They only come in pairs, which is why for a long time, most did not believe they existed, but they do, and they have the most random names. They are up and down--these are the lightest pair; then strange (for the "strangely" long lifetime of the K particle, the first composite particle found to contain this quark) and charm; and finally the fifth and sixth quarks were sometimes called truth and beauty, but perhaps that surpassed the cuteness boundary, so they eventually became known as top and bottom. And, of course, the force that hold the pairs together was called...wait for it...wait for it...gluons. LOL! Not your typical scientific names at all! Okay, I stand corrected. The fifth chapter on Loop Quantum Gravity was really good. LQG endeavors to combines the two theories of general relativity and quantum mechanics and with that we find that space is not continuous but is itself made up of infinitesimally small particles, a billion, billion times smaller than an atomic nuclei: "atoms of space." "Where are these quanta of space? Nowhere. They are not in space because they are themselves the space." Oh, and the concept of time disappears. Is your mind hurting yet? LOL.And then there is the study of black holes and the theory that once stars finish reducing to the ridiculously small sizes of a black hole--our star, were it to become a black hole, might condense to to one and a half kilometers-- they continue to collapse inward to the dimensions similar to an atom, known as a Planck Star. Then they would rebound back out. This makes perfect sense to me. Scientists are looking for evidence of this, but although cosmically this may be happening incredibly quickly, from our perspective it may look like nada. And then, of course, time doesn't matter, soooo...And the Big Bang might actually be the Big Bounce! My husband prefers the Curtain Theory.
    • 2/5
      The Wikipedia article on this book says it sold more in Italy than 50 Shades. Certainly not so in America, where people seem to prefer IQ destroying mental Novocain to something, anything, of substance. Even this short book that is light on substance. Mixed thoughts...good that he wrote it, but, short as it is, the author manages necessarily to not really say a lot. There are better books by say, Brian Greene, with a little more tooth, on the subject. Apologists might argue "At least he got people reading about physics...", but I think that a hollow victory. Regardless, it's still orders of magnitude better than 50, and doesn't cut your IQ in half.
    • 4/5
      Incredibly brief - but also a wonderful introduction to contemporary physics and the scientific problems it wrestles with. I really wish I had read this when I was taking my college astronomy class - some of the black hole lessons might have made a lot more sense! I applaud the author on making this complex subject accessible to lay readers and I particularly enjoyed the final concluding discussion, which admitted was more philosophy than science, but still fascinating.
    • 3/5
      This is a nicely put together summary of some of the most ground breaking theories in physics. Whether you want a quick review of topics you studied in college or if you['re new to the subject and simply want to learn enough to handle a conversation intelligently, this is a great read. If you've been diving in depth into these theories the book may appear simplistic, but I don't think it was meant for that group of individuals. The writing is elegant and Rovelli explains complexity with ease, making the topics accessible for the average person. A great cursory introduction to the field.
    • 5/5
      This is a lovely little book which, in a few brief chapters, lays out the basics of modern physics and then goes on to summarize current thought on time, the human mind, and the definition of "I". The examples used to explain complex theories were very effective. In the last chapter, the author waxes philosophical about the past and future of the human species, a summary which mirrored my own thoughts but expressed them more gently and succinctly than I could. "I believe that our species will not last long. It does not seem to be made of the stuff that has allowed the turtle, for example, to continue to exist more or less unchanged for hundreds of millions of years, for hundreds of times longer, that is, than we have even been in existence. We belong to a short-lived genus of species. All of our cousins are already extinct. What's more, we do damage. The brutal climate and environmental changes that we have triggered are unlikely to spare us."I have to say I'm very grateful for this book and will probably purchase a copy for myself, something I do very rarely, for reference on the scientific theories and for the poetry of the last chapter. The translators have done a wonderful job of making Dr. Rovelli's prose so effectively available to English speakers.
    • 3/5
      This is what the title says, a brief lesson. It's only about 100 pages, so there are no details or nuances. It's just a broad brush overview of what we currently understand of the physics of time and space, which is still pretty mind-bending. Because it's so brief, it glosses over the problems and controversies, making the advancements that have been made appear more straightforward than they were, but I still found it a good (if overpriced) introduction of the subject.
    • 4/5
      This was another audiobook from the library through Overdrive, and it's a short and sweet romp through the transformations in physics in the last little while or so.I loved the enthusiasm that Carlo Rovelli showed for his subject: he's obviously very passionate about what he does and having him narrate his own book was a good choice.
    • 4/5
      Physics used to be one of my disciplines in high school - it was easy for me to understand, it was interesting and there was always something new to learn. Then after I finished school, I moved to other things and had not touched a Physics book since. So when I saw this one, I figured out that it may as well be my way back on the field. It did not end up working out exactly like that but I am not sorry that I read it. Rovelli published the 7 lessons as newspaper articles (in the culture section of an Italian magazine). Because of that they had to be short and being designed for someone with no background in the science, they tend to be on the shallow end. Except when he gets a bit excited and dives head first into the topic and things get very technical. The book's 7 lessons can be easily classified in 2 groups - the actual Physics articles and the musings of a man that are just marginally connected to Physics and are instead about climate change, the human brain, humanity and whatever else he managed to connect to them. Thankfully there are 6 from the first type and just one from the second - but that one is the last one so the book ends up in a bit of a jumble. But before this, the first 6 are short, shallow and yet pretty good high level overviews of relative theory, quantum physics, the structure of the cosmos and of a particle, thermodynamics (and somehow we manage to lose time around here - Rovelli explains very concisely but also very clearly why time does not really exist) and the theories of how the universe came to exist, how it looks now and his own theories for some of those (after all he is a Physicist and part of the creators of one of the theories. The articles are part history, part science. They just scratch the surface of their concepts but the thing that is there is the progression and the connections that led to the discoveries. Nothing was discovered in a vacuum and without cooperation and that is what the book shows clearly. And then comes the last essay. Which was rambling, disconnected and just did not fit the book. At all. I really wish they had kept it out - it drags the book down. I still would recommend the book to anyone that can take some science (and that is not a scientist). It won't teach you the science but it is readable, brief and will get you the basics and the connection between them. And that is more than most people know about the topic.
    • 5/5
      Deserves a second listen due to the accented English of the brilliant professor. Overall the audiobook offers simple ideas to illustrate and sum up contemporary physics. Plus it delves into philosophy toward the end when considering the fate of our species . Check it out!
    • 5/5
      very well take time to understand complex nature ofthe subject. Really awesome!
    • 5/5
      A great short book that in my opinion is a great jump for anyone interested in science and wants to get into some harder topics of it.
    • 5/5
      Science or life lesson or both or none or oh my GOD that was an audiobook!
    • 4/5
      Great listen! Easy to follow, I definitely recommend it. :)
    • 4/5
      Rovelli is a talented writer--or has a talented English translator, and these basic lectures on physics are engaging and the speculative content is well gauged. What isn't well-gauged is having the audiobook read by Rovelli. It takes a while to get use to his heavily accented English and his tendency to pronounce the "ed" on the end of words as a separate syllable. Still, it does give you a sense of the author's personality you would otherwise miss, and at less than two hours, you don't have to put up with it for too long.
    • 4/5
      No more than a pamphlet - seven brief newspaper articles collected together - and thus extremely short, such that publishing it is a book is really a bit of a push. But very good for all that, and perhaps because of it. It's brevity is the real accomplishment, the quality of the writing is incidental, the lack of footnotes and sources inevitable.
    • 3/5
      Read Hawking instead. Same material mostly but Hawking goes into just a bit more detail.
    • 4/5
      Read second time, for book club. Still enjoyed.
    • 4/5
      As the title says, this book is very brief - the first 6 lessons can be read in about 5 minutes each. They do a good job of explaining basic concepts of modern physics, especially quantum mechanics. But more than that, they do a good job of explaining why someone would care about physics - they convey the wonder and joy of exploring the basic mysteries of how the world works. The final essay is a deep exploration of what it means to be a human existing in a world where physics exists. I didn't necessarily walk away from this book with a deeper understanding of physics than I had before (as someone who reads a lot of science fiction and general nerdy stuff), but I did enjoy reading it nonetheless - Rovelli's writing is very good, and there's a lot of food for thought here.
    • 3/5
      Too brief introduction to some aspects of physics, my favorite parts were how heat and time are interrelated and the last section about the human mind and the probability that we as a species are doomed like all the other mammals that have marched to extinction before us. .


      EDIT** reread
      Spent the summer watching the World Science Festival on youtube and wanted a fast refresher of the most important topics in physics. Best part this time around was how our universe may have come from a bubble in another universe.
    • 5/5
      Brilliant. Accessible. Reality altering.
    • 3/5
      Because I listened to the audiobook, my attention kept going in and out. I'll probably have to read the book.