What is Reddit's opinion of Reality Is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

I don't know about apps per se, doesn't Audible have one? Anyway, I am listening to Reality Is Not What It Seems by Carlo Rivello - it's about gravity loops and the narration is first rate. You might like that.

 

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The echo of stringy-loopy wars: the jealous critique of Rovelli's book by (feminist and thus more famous, but equally unsucesfful 1, 2, 3) string theorist Lisa Randall.

Randall strongly objects to Rovelli’s attempts to draw connections between modern physics and classical philosophy:

"Wedging old ideas into new thinking is analogous to equating thousand-dollar couture adorned with beads and feathers and then marketed as “tribal fashion” to homespun clothing with true cultural and historical relevance. Ideas about relativity or gravity in ancient times weren’t the same as Einstein’s theory. Art (and science) are in the details. Either elementary matter is extended or it is not. The universe existed forever, or it had a beginning. Atoms of old aren’t the atoms of today. Egg and flour are not a soufflé. Without the appropriate care, it all just collapses."

She’s also critical of the way Rovelli handles the unavoidable problem of writing about a complicated technical subject for the public:

The beauty of physics lies in its precise statements, and that is what is essential to convey. Many readers won’t have the background required to distinguish fact from speculation. Words can turn equations into poetry, but elegant language shouldn’t come at the expense of understanding. Rovelli isn’t the first author guilty of such romanticizing, and I don’t want to take him alone to task. But when deceptively fluid science writing permits misleading interpretations to seep in, I fear that the floodgates open to more dangerous misinformation. Compounding the author’s challenge is the need to distinguish between speculation, ideas that might be verified in the future, and what is just fanciful thinking.”

OK, coming from someone like Randall - who build her carrier on untestable hypothesis or already failed theories at best - that’s just funny.