Quotes from Carlo Rovelli

If we are special we are only special in the way that everyone feels themselves to be, as every mother is to her child. Certainly not for the rest of nature.

Perhaps poetry is another of science's deepest roots: the capacity to see beyond the visible.

There are absolute masterpieces that move us intensely: Mozart's Requiem, Homer's Odyssey, the Sistine Chapel, King Lear. To fully appreciate their brilliance may require a long apprenticeship, but the reward is sheer beauty—and not only this, but the opening of our eyes to a new perspective upon the world. Einstein's jewel, the general theory of relativity, is a masterpiece of this order. I

The career of a mathematician begins when he realizes that a subject he is studying is not presented in the right way: it starts with an act of rebellion…").

Despite certain obscurities,

Newton asserts explicitly in his book that we can't ever measure the true time t, but if we assume that it exists, we can set up an efficient framework to describe nature.

The theory also gives information on which value of the spectrum will manifest itself in the next interaction, but only in the form of probabilities. We do not know with certainty where the electron will appear, but we can compute the probability that it will appear here or there.

Solen böjer rummet runt omkring sig och jorden kretsar inte kring den för att den vore dragen av en gåtfull kraft, utan för att den rör sig rakt fram i ett rum som böjs.

Whenever you consider a phenomenon certifying the passage of time , it is through the production of heat that it does so. There is no preferred direction of time without heat.

If you want to truly advance the path of knowledge, you must not just revere your master, study, and build on his teachings. You must seek out his mistakes.

It is hardly surprising that there are more things in heaven and earth, dear reader, than have been dreamed of in our philosophy—or in our physics.

The physical substratum that determines duration and physical intervals—the gravitational field—does not only have a dynamic influenced by masses; it is also a quantum entity that does not have determined values until it interacts with something else. When it does, the durations are granular and determinate only for that something with which it interacts; they remain indeterminate for the rest of the universe.

At the precise moment when heat is produced, the process is irreversible: the past differs from the future. It is always heat and only heat that distinguishes the past from the future. This is universal. A burning candle is transformed into smoke, the smoke cannot transform into a candle-and a candle produces heat. A boiling hot cup of tea cools down and does not heat up: it diffuses heat. We live and get old: producing heat through friction.

the sun is using up its combustible hydrogen and will eventually exhaust it and extinguish. The sun too is getting older, and in fact produces heat. The moon also appears to orbit Earth unchangingly and always equal to itself, whereas in reality it is slowly moving away. This is because it raises tides, and the tides heat the sea a little, thus exchanging energy with the moon.

The essence of scientific knowledge is the capacity to avoid clinging to certainties and received worldviews, and instead be prepared to change these, repeatedly if need be, in light of our knowledge, observations, discussions, different ideas, and criticisms. The nature of scientific thought is critical and rebellious. It does not suffer a priori conclusions, reverence, or untouchable truths.

But on the moon, the duration of the "extended present" is a few seconds, and on Mars it is a quarter of an hour. This means we can say that on Mars there are events that in this precise moment have already happened, events that are yet to happen, but also a quarter-of-an-hour of events during which things occur that are neither in our past nor in our future.

Einstein predicted that time passes more quickly high up than below, nearer to Earth. This was measured and turned out to be the case. If a person who has lived at sea level meets up with his twin who has lived in the mountains, he will find that his sibling is slightly older than he. And this is just the beginning.

Why does information play such a central role as this? Perhaps because we must not confuse what we know about a system with the absolute state of the same system. What we know is something concerning the relation between the system and ourselves. Knowledge is intrinsically relational; it depends just as much on its object as upon its subject.

the "singularity" that classic general relativity anticipated disappears as soon as we take quantum gravity into account.

But the effective way of continuing to exist in a changing environment is to better manage correlations with the external world, that is to say, information: to collect, store, transmit, and elaborate information. For this reason DNA exists, together wih immune systems, sense organs, nervous systems, comolex brains, languages, books, the library of Alexandria, computers and Wikipedia: they maximize the efficiency of information management. The management of correlations favoring survival.

We usually speak of probability when we do not have all the data.

It must not be claimed that anyone can sense time by itself apart from the movement of things. LUCRETIUS, De rerum natura1

There is not an 'I' and 'the neurons in my brain'. They are the same thing. An individual is a process: complex, tightly integrated.

Qui, sul bordo di quello che sappiamo, a contatto con l'oceano di quanto non sappiamo, brillano il mistero del mondo, la bellezza del mondo, e ci lasciano senza fiato.