Brought to you by Penguin.

Hello and welcome to the Penguin podcast where we talk to writers about writing.

I'm Nihal Arthur Nica and today I'm speaking to an Italian

writer and groundbreaking theoretical physicist who has made significant contributions to our

understanding of the physics of space and time. His 2014 book, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics,

has been translated into 41 languages and sold over a million copies.

And this month sees the English language release of his first ever book, Anaximander and the Nature of Science,

which tells the origin story of scientific thinking. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to talk to him today.

Carlo Rovelli, welcome to the Penguin podcast. How did you come across an axiomander? When was the first time you heard his

name? I knew a little bit of an axiomander just minimally from high school. In Italy, we have a lot of historical teaching in high school

and there's a history of philosophy which is almost everybody go through. And usually

history of philosophy starts with a little chapter on the beginning of Greek philosophy,

Talas Anaximander and Anaximenez.

And the textbook says something completely incomprehensible, which is that something

like Talis thought that everything is made by water, and Anaximen thought that everything

is made by air, and Anaximander thought that everything is made by something

called Apeiron, which nobody knows what it is. And then we pass to the next philosopher,

which is completely incompateless does make any sense. That's what I knew until many years later,

I was preparing to teach a class in the history of science at the university. In the meanwhile, I had become

faculty at the university. And while studying the history of ancient science in Greece,

you know, the university, we give classes so we can learn something. When we don't know something,

if you don't know something, you decide to teach it, so then you have an opportunity to go around and try to learn something

...