Palle Yourgrau
A World Without Time. The Forgotten Legacy of Gödel and Einstein

"A World without Time. The Forgotten Legacy of Gödel and Einstein", Palle Yourgrau (U.S.A.) 2005. In Italian "Un mondo senza tempo. L'eredità dimenticata di Gödel e Einstein", translated by Libero Sosio, published by il Saggiatore (2006-2011)

Whether we like it or not, since we were little, our life is filled with metaphysics (and be wary of those who deny ever being influenced by it: they are either lying or showing off).

Obviously, it can present itself in various forms: from those harmless ones (like the fairytales our mother told us to help our chase to Morpheus) to those that are passed off as the foundations of our cultural identity (sic!): in between, there's a bit of everything from the "B" of Berlusconi to the "Z" of Zeus (I'll give you the "A" for free...). Similarly, in this mixed stew of (probably) non-existent "vegetables," you find useful things or at least "delightfully" non-harmful ones (we would never want to "shoot" at Virgil, Andersen, Collodi, Homer, Calvino, etc., would we?) and it is very good and right to preserve their memory and spread their knowledge.

I must say that since I was little, those stories that didn't end with a "happy ending" ("and they lived happily ever after," to be clear) had a strong impact on me, as well as feeling empathy for the great losers of literature (Hector is the first that comes to mind). Growing up, the awareness that myth (even with a capital "M," if you prefer) drew from reality (and often vice versa) became dogma, and inevitably, I discovered that heroes (and "anti-heroes") existed (existed and/or will exist again...) in flesh and bone and not only in the pages and/or words of human imagination.

Kurt Gödel is one of those heroes, in flesh and bone, who embodies the figure of the loser and ends in a bitter epilogue.

Thus, it may happen that, wandering in a bookstore, stumbling upon a misleading (and then I'll explain why I used this adjective) title, you find all of this: a story of heroes (and their enemies) balanced between the principle of Bivalence and "Metaphysics" against the backdrop of one of the greatest battles (albeit only at the theoretical level) ever fought in space and time (though I should say spacetime, which is the cause of the dispute as well as the most correct way to write the concept).

"A World without Time" reconstructs the "mythology" (and in the lexicon used in the book, this term is appropriate) of the human and "cerebral" events of the great protagonists of the intellectual explosion (logic, mathematics, physics, and philosophy) of the first half of the 20th century. Never mind if only Einstein and Gödel appear in the title (though both, more the latter, are the common thread of the events) because the book "moves" in a "choral" screenplay where very few protagonists of those years are excluded: just as, of the era, there are no shortages of (accurate) insights on the theories and scientific discoveries made.

Be clear that it is not an easy book to read (although it was created with a divulgative purpose since it is the "soft" version of a previous essay the author addressed to the properly scientific world) because it does not always "go straight" on the more "technical" aspects of the matter (thus not recommended for those wanting pure "entertainment") and if someone is "deceived" by the title (like myself) expecting entirely a treatise on Gödel's ideas about Einstein's theory of Relativity, they will be partially disappointed (although in the last two chapters the topic is explored in depth) but then rewarded by the brilliant and rapid human and scientific exploration presented in an effective and relevant manner.

"We live in a world where ninety-nine percent of beautiful things are destroyed while they are still in bud" (K. Gödel)