Seven Brief Lessons On Physics - Carlo Rovelli

I am by no means an expert in Physics. I studied it in my final year of high school, because I thought it might provide some insights valuable on my budding career as a music producer  (A career that never really took off), and frankly I found it insufferably boring. Once I got told that if I wasn’t going to pay attention to the class I should leave, which I did…. Before promptly being told off by the year level coordinator that lunch time!

That was a long time ago, and I have friends who are scientists now, with masters degrees, PhD’s and years of industry experience, and I enjoy hearing about the application of physics in their jobs. The actual day-to-day workings of physics, however fascinating, have never captivated me enough to read about in depth. I haven’t even tried to read anything written by Stephen Hawking, although I did watch a documentary on the Hadron Collider once, which I thoroughly enjoyed….

Regardless; I read Seven Brief Lessons On Physics, and it was a delight! A wonderful overview and explanations of seven lessons that must be important in the field of Physics (I wouldn’t know, I didn’t do that well in Physics at school).
The seven chapters discuss;
               General Relativity.
               Quantum Physics.
               The makeup of space.
               Particles.
               The combination of Quantum mechanics and General Relativity
               Probability, Time and Thermodynamics
               And… humans.

It was really interesting, and at less than 100 pages, it really is a brief set of lessons. I am not greatly inspired to dive deeply into physics right now, but I certainly wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to discuss the practical applications of the theories and lessons discussed by Carlo. There is a strong thread of philosophical conversation throughout the book, and that is absolutely my cup of tea. The intersection of what we know, what we think we know and what we are learning brings up several philosophical dilemmas, the discussions of which stretch back thousands of years.
The emphasis on continually refining the knowledge and testing the theories is one I particularly like and Carlo says;

               To trust immediate intuitions rather than collective examination that is rational, careful and intelligent is not wisdom: it is the presumption of an old man who refuses to believe that the great world outside his village is any different from the one which he has always known.
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I cannot say how much I appreciate the big brains studying this stuff and distilling it for people like me. The contributions to the development of the world as we know it from this field in particular are undeniable, to get a grasp on what they are studying is truly a gift.

If you are an expert in physics and have read this, I’d love to hear your thoughts. If you’ve never even entertained the idea of finding out more about this intimidating topic, perhaps this is the entry level book for you too!

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