{"id":865651,"date":"2026-09-30T08:10:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T08:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/865651\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T08:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T08:10:11","slug":"on-the-equality-of-all-things-by-carlo-rovelli-review-a-physicists-guide-to-life-the-universe-and-everything-science-and-nature-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/865651\/","title":{"rendered":"On the Equality of All Things by Carlo Rovelli review \u2013 a physicist\u2019s guide to life, the universe and everything | Science and nature books"},"content":{"rendered":"

Under the letter \u201cB\u201d in the index at the back of Carlo Rovelli\u2019s latest book you will find Francis Bacon, bats, behaviourism, Henri Bergson, and the big bang. This intriguing little miscellany reflects the sweeping ambition of what is perhaps Rovelli\u2019s most overtly philosophical work to date.<\/p>\n

Rovelli, who directs a quantum gravity research group in Marseille, has written several books on physics for the general reader, including the global bestseller Seven Brief Lessons on Physics. His latest is an attempt to integrate principles and theories from\u00a0the discipline into a broader Weltanschauung: one of the essential unity of all things, and the profoundly relational and perspectival nature of the universe. \u201cElectrons and minds, stones and laws, judgments and galaxies do not essentially differ in nature from one another,\u201d he writes. \u201cThey are notions that illuminate each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

If this sounds familiar, that\u2019s because it is. Rovelli echoes concepts that have been around for millennia in ancient thought, including Hinduism and Buddhism, from whose sacred texts he quotes. But what sets him apart from the countless other modern writers, dreamers and thinkers who preach the oneness of it all is that he grounds his ideas in scientific theory rather than theology or new age conjecture.<\/p>\n

double quotation markIt\u2019s enough to give you vertigo, and Rovelli admits it<\/p>\n

On the Equality of All Things is\u00a0a\u00a0slender volume holding an extraordinary density of ideas. Translator Simon Carnell, himself a\u00a0poet, maintains the clarity and concision we have come to expect from Rovelli\u2019s writing. In six chapters, or\u00a0\u201clessons\u201d, Rovelli lays out\u00a0the philosophical significance of what\u00a0he believes is a major scientific revolution, happening right now. The\u00a0first lesson refers to his theory of relational quantum mechanics to ask us to abandon the notion that the world is made up of things with fixed properties. Rather, physical systems have properties relative to other physical systems. Also, everything\u2019s moving, all the time, and there\u2019s no fixed point around which we are in motion.<\/p>\n

The second lesson takes aim at the idea of linearity. Rovelli urges us to accept circularity and question the need to identify the ultimate foundation of things, when in fact, it\u2019s turtles all the way down. The lessons continue. The world is not made up of things at all, but processes. \u201cEven a stone is a process\u201d, and so are we. Time itself is mutable and passes at different speeds in different places. Our knowledge of anything can only ever be partial.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s enough to give you vertigo, and Rovelli admits it. \u201cThe resulting image of reality is haunting. Every fact is only a fact relative to something else, and even the fact that a fact is relative to something else is itself relative. There is no ground floor.\u201d Yet, in contrast to the bleakness that can shroud such unflinching scientific accounts of the universe, Rovelli\u2019s telling validates our messy, subjective human experiences. \u201cNone of this prevents us from describing the world from one perspective. Ours.\u201d But the physics tells us that our perspectives are just that, and that there may be others.<\/p>\n

On the Equality of All Things takes its place as part of a blossoming movement that asks us to see the world as a set of interconnected relationships. As such, it sits alongside the work of mycologist Merlin Sheldrake, botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer, physiologist Denis Noble and nature writer Robert Macfarlane. Rovelli\u2019s emphasis on perspective and relationality in physics echoes similar intellectual turns in social anthropology, ecology and biology that invite us to stop thinking about the world as something we stand without, and instead take our rightful place within it. Distancing himself from the more hubristic elements of the Enlightenment \u2013 an emphasis on certainty, linearity, and overconfidence in the imperfect instrument that is Reason \u2013 Rovelli asks us to embrace \u201cthe nimble lightness of circularity, complexity, ambiguity, metaphors, emotions, the acceptance of uncertainty and change\u201d.<\/p>\n

His refusal to denigrate human culture as being inferior to or incompatible with hard science is refreshing. He observes wryly that the term \u201cconsciousness\u201d has superseded the word \u201csoul\u201d because it is perceived to be more scientific, even though it is just as nebulous. Provided we understand that physical processes underlie everything, Rovelli sees no reason why we may not \u201ccalmly speak of the soul and emotions just as we speak of tables even if tables are collections of atoms\u201d.<\/p>\n

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For all Rovelli is a gifted communicator, some of the science in\u00a0this book required a level of intellectual scaffolding that, alas, my rusty physics A-level did not provide. At his explanation of loop quantum gravity, my brain started to creak and let off steam. Yet, even if you don\u2019t have the foggiest idea what the granularity of spacetime means, engaging with this book as an internally coherent work of philosophy and literature is rewarding enough. And Rovelli\u2019s conclusion is powerful: we are physical systems dancing among other physical systems, and the world \u201cis our blood brother\u201d. We\u2019re at home, among family. Perhaps it\u2019s time we honoured that kinship.<\/p>\n

On the Equality of All Things: Physics and Philosophy by Carlo Rovelli is published by Allen Lane (\u00a320). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com<\/a>. Delivery charges may apply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Under the letter \u201cB\u201d in the index at the back of Carlo Rovelli\u2019s latest book you will find…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":865652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[223,88],"class_list":["post-865651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-books","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=865651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/865652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=865651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=865651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=865651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}