BOOK REVIEW: THE ORDER OF TIME BY CARLO ROVELLI

By: Sid Lefevre

“And then one day you find ten years have got behind you

No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun”

It’s nearly five in the morning, and I’ve stayed up all night working on several school projects that are due sooner than I’d like. I am out of time. I am always running out of time. I sit outside on the cold concrete under a pale, grey sky. The leaves of the aspen trees in my backyard have left for the winter and, while I try to take a moment to relax, my mind can’t help but wander to the coming days and the deadlines I am accountable for.

An essay due here, a band rehearsal there, a blog post, a social call, a restless nap, and maybe a doctor’s visit somewhere in between- if I can make the time for it. Sometimes, I wonder how long I can go on like this, beckoning to the world’s calls, fearing that if I sleep for even a few minutes too long I will be swept away by the relentless currents of time. I set an alarm for seven in the morning, even though I have no intention of sleeping.

I am not alone in this struggle. The story of the human race could be seen as a species desperate to assert its will on the reality we have been thrust into- battling against time, trying to form order out of chaos. From empires to lunar rovers, marathons to marriages, our world is nothing more than a sand castle on the shores of time- one we carefully shape for our whole lives, even though we can the tides rising and the towers beginning to crumble as the sand slips through our fingers. And yet, we continue sculpting. The currents of time are always pushing us forward to the edge of our being, and then keep pushing on long after we have left the limelight.

In the “Order of Time,” a popular science book by theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli, he plums the depths of the question of time, uprooting its foundations to reveal that, underneath the layers of our perception, perhaps there is no such thing as time at all.

What separates the past from the future? Why does time move faster on the tops of mountains than at the bottom of the sea? How does the sun direct us on our course through time? What distinguishes a stone skipping across a pond from a lover’s first kiss? If time ceases to hold sway, and the past becomes merely an illusion, what are we truly drawing from when we reflect on our memories?

Rovelli addresses these questions masterfully, offering profound insights from a physicist's perspective as he navigates concepts such as Eintstein’s theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, and the laws of thermodynamics, pulling each of these apart as he unravels the order of time.

But the true magic of the work lies in the writing itself. You don’t need a comprehensive understanding of physics or countless hours spent in the writings of Augustine or Aristotle to grasp the content of this book.

Rovelli’s prose sings, and he brings these challenging scientific and philosophical concepts to life with stark poetic metaphors, rich imagery, and callbacks to some of the greatest literary works throughout history. Here is a little of Horace’s Odes, there the immortal words of Hofmannsthal, all guiding us to understanding the laws that underpin our reality. It’s a book on physics, yes, but it is also meant for lovers of the written word.

Finally, what really ties the book together is the empathetic touch Rovelli imbues in his writing. This book does indeed delve deep into the most cerebral concepts in physics: how the sun drives entropy on Earth, the idea of emergent phenomena, and how these concepts relate to our perception of time. Neutrinos. Photons. Quanta. But even as Rovelli ventures into the most granular elements of reality, he never loses sight of why humans seek truth in the first place.

“But it isn’t absence that drives sorrow”, he writes, “It is affection and love. 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.”

As I sit in my backyard, freezing in the early winter morning, the faint glow of an unseen sun suddenly gives shape to the endless wall of clouds overhead, splattering a blank canvas with various shades of grey and black. The waves of color move like a storm, aimless in wandering and at a glacial pace, flowing with silence in all directions across the morning sky. Another day is swallowed in the currents of time and, as the clouds sprawl to the horizon, it feels as though time is ready to take this day before it has even begun. The past and the present bleed together, and the future is nowhere to be seen. Eventually, the clouds come to a standstill, as if they have nowhere left to go, and my worries about what has been and what lies ahead seem to vanish into the placid grey expanse above.

Breathe. Relax. You are not running out of time. There was never such a thing to begin with.