On the Equality of All Things

The global bestselling superstar ‘poet of physics’ returns with a dazzling philosophical exploration of our place in the universe

What can we really know about the world around us? Or is there beauty in daring not to know?

With clarity and lightness, acclaimed physicist Carlo Rovelli takes us on a journey of enlightenment, to the speculative frontiers of modern physics and the boundaries of thought. There is no fear in testing their limits, he suggests – not least because there may be no final ground to reach.

Here Rovelli shows us that electrons and minds, stones and laws, judgements and galaxies are not essentially different in nature from one another, but rather ideas that illuminate each other. Reality, he reveals, is shaped by a continuous play of reflections. From this emerges his visionary insight: the equality of all things.

Like the ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi, who dreams he is a butterfly and wakes unsure whether he is Zhuangzi dreaming to be a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming to be Zhuangzi, Rovelli invites us to see reality anew, recognizing that our knowledge is coherent but also uncertain and circular. We are made of the same stuff as the rest of reality – and so we are, in a deep sense, home in the world.

Review

A treatise that feels entirely liberating and brings its readers closer to the world around them. The poetic streak Rovelli is celebrated for is fully apparent through its pages, simultaneously enriching and contextualising the complex scientific ideas contained within ― AnOther

A broad-ranging virtuoso ... “Interesting” barely touches the sides with Rovelli ― New Scientist

Rovelli can be counted on for a brain-melting moment or two ... This slim treatise modestly seeks to recalibrate many of our foundational assumptions about the nature of reality and our relationship to it ― NPR

A serene tour of the philosophy Rovelli has drawn from a lifetime in physics ― Prospect

Rovelli describes the world – with typical flirtatiousness – as a place made up of kisses. Things constantly happening in relation to one another, never simply singular things being … Even when you haven’t understood what he’s said, his books somehow convince you otherwise ― Observer

Carlo Rovelli is the best thinker out there articulating physics, philosophy, and literature. There simply are no scientists of his caliber who also are humanists of the first order. His prose has the enviable ability to expand the realm of the utterable and, with it, the reach of our intellectual experience -- Hernan Diaz, author of Trust

Time and again during the reading of On the Equality of All Things, I found myself physically thrilled by Carlo Rovelli's overarching ideas: that certainty in science is an illusion, that science will never manage to reveal the ultimate truths of the natural world, that there is no nobler cause on this earth than trying -- Philip Marsden, author of Rising Ground

About the Author

Carlo Rovelli is an internationally acclaimed writer whose books, including Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, The Order of Time, Helgoland and White Holes,have been number one bestsellers around the world and translated into over forty languages. As a theoretical physicist, he has made significant contributions to the physics of space and time and he is currently directing the quantum gravity research group of the Centre de physique théorique in Marseille, France.