Carlo Rovelli is an Italian theoretical physicist, a specialist in quantum gravity, and the author of several popular science books. In “The Order of Time,” he offers an unexpected perspective on the phenomenon of time, which seems familiar to all of us. Time, he argues, is not a universal truth, but an illusion—it is simply our sense of the sequence of events, their causal connections. Time is a form of our interaction with the world. The mystery of time is probably more connected with what we ourselves are than with what the cosmos is.
Rovelli manages to present some of humanity’s most complex and captivating ideas about time with contagious poetic charm and wit.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH