Carlo Rovelli, "The Order of Time," "Seven Brief Lessons on Physics"

이론물리학자 Carlo Rovelli 의 새 에세이집 (영역본)

“There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less

Important Than Kindness" (2022)의 뉴욕타임즈 서평을

읽고서 곧장 동네 도서관에 예약을 했는데도 나는 열 번째다.

이달 나온 책인데 도서관은 4권을 구입 중이다.

 

("Reality, in short, is always something other than what

it just was, or seemed to be, he argues. To define it is

to misunderstand it." -- 위에 언급한 뉴욕타임즈 서평에서.)

 

마침 도서관에 Rovelli 의 다른 두 책이 있길래 빌려다 읽었다.

전에 이미 예약한 사람들이 많아서 읽어보기를 단념했던

"Seven Brief Lessons on Physics"와 "The Order of Time,"

둘 다 재미있고 빨리 읽힌다. 문체가 간결하고 시적이다.

 

 

Carlo Rovelli, "Seven Brief Lessons on Physics" (2014, 영역본 2016)

 

 

(p. 28)

 

A world of happenings, not of things. (p. 34)

 

We have a hundred billion neurons in our brains, as many as there

stars in a galaxy, with even more astronomical number of links and

potential combinations through which they can interact. We are

not conscious of all of this. "We" are the process formed by this

entire intricacy, not just by the little of it of which we are conscious.

The "I" who decides is that same "I" that is formed. (p. 74)

 

It is part of our nature to love and to be honest. It is part of our

nature to long to know more and continue to learn. Our knowledge

of the world continue to grow. (p. 80)

 

뉴욕타임즈 서평: "Seven Brief Lessons On Physics"

 

 

 

Carlo rovelli, "The Order of Time" (2017, 영역본 2018)

 

 

Spacetime is the gravitational field -- and vice versa. (p. 75)

 

[T]he time determined by macroscopic states and the time

determined by quantum noncommutativity are aspects of

the same phenomena. And it is this thermal and quantum

time, I believe, that is the variable that we call "time" in

our real universe, where a time variable does not exist at

the fundamental level. The intrinsic quantum

indeterminancy of things produces a blurring, like

Boltzmann's blurring .... Temporality is profoundly linked

to blurring. The blurring is due to the fact that we are

ignorant of the microscopic details of the world. The time

of physics is, ultimately, the expression of our ignorance

of the eorld. Time is ifnorance. (p. 140)

 

This is what seems to emerge from the very lively

current reserch on the brain. If this is so, then "things,"

like "concepts," are fixed poits in the neuronal dynamic,

induced by recurring structures of sensorial input

and of successive elaborations. (p. 175)

 

A recent book by Dean Buonomeno devoted to reserch

on the functioning of the brain is entitled Your

Brain is a Time Machine. (p. 179)

 

[T]here is a categorical difference between seeing traces

of the past and perceiving the flow of time -- and

Augustine realizes that the root of this difference, the

awareness of the passing of time, is internal. (p. 181)

 

Time opens up our limited access to the world. Time, then,

is the form in which we beings, whose brains are made up

essentially of memory and foresight, interact with the

world: it is the source of our identity. (p. 189)

 

Perhaps the emotion of time is precisely

what time is for us. (p. 201)

 

But our lives are not driven by rational arguments.

Reason help us to clarify ideas, to discover errors. But

the same reason also shows us that the motives by

which we act are inscribed in our intimate structure as

mammals, as hunters, as social beings: reason

illuminates these connections, it does not generate

them. We are nor, in the first place,reasoning beings.

(p. 208)

 

And song, as Augustine observed, is the awreness of time.

It is time. (p. 212)

 

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. (p. 121)

[내가 짧은 글에 썼던, "슬픔도 기쁨"이 생각난다.]

 

 

워싱턴포스트 서평: "The Order of Time"