Seven Brief Lessons on Physics

Front Cover
Penguin Books, 2015 - 83 pages

These seven 'short lessons' guide us, with admirable clarity, through the scientific revolution that shook physics in the twentieth century and still continues to shake us today. In this short, playful, entertaining and mind-bending introduction to modern physics, Rovelli explains Einstein's theory of general relativity, quantum mechanics, black holes, the complex architecture of the universe, elementary particles, gravity, and the nature of the mind. In under one hundred pages, readers will understand the most transformative scientific discoveries of the twentieth century. Not since Richard Feynman's celebrated best-seller Six Easy Pieceshas physics been so vividly, intelligently and entertainingly revealed.

Carlo Rovelli is an eminent physicist with an extraordinary ability to write about complex topics in a lucid, clear prose. His book was top of the bestseller charts in Italy for months and has sold over 200,000 copies since publication in November. He is the head of the Équipe de Gravité Quantiqueat the Theoretical Physics Department of Aix-Marseille University. It has sold in over a dozen languages.

Here, on the edge of what we know, in contact with the ocean of the unknown, shines the mystery and the beauty of the world. And it's breathtaking.

Other editions - View all

About the author (2015)

Carlo Rovelli was born on May 3, 1956 in Verona, Italy. He graduated from the University of Bologna (B.S. and M.S. in Physics) and the University of Padova (PhD in Physics). His postdoctoral positions included University of Rome, Trieste, and Yale University. He is head of the quantum gravity group at the Aix-Marseille University, Centre de Physique Theorique and is an affiliated Professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science of the University of Pittsburgh. His recent books include Seven Brief Lessons on Physics (2016), a New York Times bestseller, and The Order of Time (2018).

Bibliographic information