I like Carlo Rovelli’s writing, as do many others, so no great story there on my behalf. But friends and people I know are critical, for this reason or that, all of which to my mind are forgivable because of the extraordinary generosity with which he writes. Rovelli addresses some of this in his 2024 book, White Holes, when he describes how intermediate physicists get cross with him for forgoing the technical jargon and doing all he can to make almost-impossible-to-understand-concepts accessible to people like me; people who can barely count. (I’m not even joking about that. My book-keeping skills have improved tremendously since working in a part-time role, helping to manage a housing estate, but the mistakes from simple miscounting remain an ever-present threat.) While I don’t know Rovelli personally, and can only make guesses based on his texts, it seems to me the generosity is sincere. As far as I can tell, he does not appear to spend time on social media telling others he is more educated, more knowledgeable, and more important than anyone who might dare to question him. This habit on social media always disappoints me. When I see smart human beings giving in to their fragile egos and using their status and power to try and obliterate others, my little heart sinks. Stop, I think, stop! It detracts from your work. And it’s unnecessary. I do not see Rovelli putting anyone down for asking questions or challenging him on science (although I am no longer on Twitter and have not been for some time, so am prepared to be proven wrong). Instead, what I see is a person who devotes significant time and effort to making physics accessible in a world of intellectual gatekeepers. And thank goodness he does, because the poetic style he embraces is probably the only way I can enter a conversation about this difficult science. And yet, I must try, because physics and specifically quantum physics are what underpin and inform contemporary technology, which is the central focus of my inquiries; how contemporary technology is challenging the hubristic bedrock on which the literate human has staked his claims of superiority for at least two thousand years. You don’t have to believe me alone. Karen Barad and Thomas Nail discuss this in their works (online in YouTube videos or their writing). Without quantum physics, there would be no CDs, internet, email, dynamic computerised algorithm (AI), probably no gene therapy, and more besides. There would be no technology that makes it possible to decode and then recode reality, as society is doing now. And as we engage with these technologies, many of our long-held assumptions are falling away, whether we know or admit it or not. This shift spans from simple examples to more complex ones. For instance, we now take for granted our ability to communicate in real-time with people on the other side of the world or even in space. Or more astoundingly, we’re speaking to machines in natural language and editing genes to treat conditions like sickle-cell anaemia (though access to these treatments remain limited by economics).
Because of that focus, Kathryn Hayle’s important 1999 book How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics has been pivotal for me; as has Karen Barad’s 2007 Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning; Thomas Nail’s philosophy of movement and his 2019 Theory of Image; and Donald D Hoffman’s 2019 The Case Against Reality: How Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes. However, I am certain that without Rovelli’s books, accessing the narratives these books share with the world would have been far more difficult than it was.
White Holes is no different. It may be the most poetic of all the Rovelli books I have read (Seven Brief Lessons on Physics – 2015, Reality is Not What It Seems – 2016, the most difficult one, The Order of Time -2018, Helgoland – 2021 and now White Holes). In it, Rovelli reinforces what may be his most important message – one that cannot be overstated as we traverse this technological age we are all part of. He reminds us that “The whole biosphere, and the entirety of human culture” (121) are products of the same material flux, not separate entities from separate realms. He writes: “To discover that the subtle logic that orients black holes is the same one that orientates our memory and our choices is to understand that we are part of the same global flux, the same eternal current” (120). This understanding – that we are not separate from but deeply entangled with the physics that shapes our universe may be (or indeed is) exactly what we need as we navigate the technological revolution that quantum physics has made possible. Even if the mere act of counting remains forever a challenge.
Edit 23/11/24: PS. How thrilling to see the book ends with the word ‘dragonflies’, which I break up in Frog–No Prince/Promise, and which explores the collapse of man’s demarcations
