Carlo Rovelli’s The Order of Time: The Most Comprehensive Book On Time So Far?

Is The order of Time the most comprehensive book on time ever published because the author tackles on the perceptual and descriptive aspects to the scientific definition of time?

By: Ringo Bones

According to the book’s author – theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli – time is an illusion: our naïve perception of its flow doesn’t correspond to physical reality. Unlike most recently published books on the nature of time authored by theoretical physicists, Carlo Rovell’s The Order of Time also has chapters explaining why Medieval pheasants understood time better than the average 21^st Century layperson, as in they understood time better than we do - even way better than 19^th Century economists and policymakers in fact. Rovelli says the railroad industry boom and the widespread adoption of trains were the reason for the standardization of time, like the establishment of time zones in the continental United States. In this book, Rovelli also states that the standardization of time eventually lead to Einstein’s discoveries. Even though the latest concepts on the nature of time is also discussed by Rovelli, he tends to return to Medieval era philosophers when referring to how the layperson perceive time like how time is tied to everything that makes us suffer and on how time shapes our identities.

Rovelli is one of the creators and champions of loop quantum gravity theory, one of the several ongoing attempts to marry quantum mechanics with general relativity. In contrast to the better-known string theory, loop quantum gravity does not attempt to be a “theory of everything” out of which we can integrate all of particle physics and gravitation. Nevertheless, the agenda of loop quantum gravity to combine these two fundamentally differing laws is incredibly ambitious. Along with his work on loop quantum gravity, Rovelli puts forward the idea of “physics without time”. This stems from the fact that some equations of quantum gravity (such as the Wheeler-DeWitt equation which assigns quantum states to the Universe) can be written without any reference to time at all.

Even though it is very insightful – i.e. the format of integrating classical education and scientific education’s ideas about time – I still have lingering doubts about Rovelli’s ideas on loop quantum gravity or the thermal time hypothesis. And even though this book seems to tackle every aspect or time from the metaphysical to the scientific, this book alone is unlikely to make the average reader as well-versed about time in comparison to say, William Penrose or the late Stephen Hawking or give them enough information to render judgment whether Rovelli’s views are on the right track when it comes to advancing humanity’s understanding on the true nature of time. Comprehensive so far – yes indeed, but I’d rather be more interested in a book as comprehensive as this, but one that tackles the still theoretical subject of sending information and data faster than the speed of light.