Physicist Carlo Rovelli's epiphany on an Italian beach

Condofuri. This is the name of the place. August. The furious heat. The beach. The luminous Mediterranean Sea shining and the dazzling southern sky. The smell of the sea. The softly scraping feel of the warm sand sticking on my arms and legs. And my eyes are immersed in the book I’m studying. It is my general relativity textbook. I’m studying by myself here in the southernmost tip of continental Italy, the tip of the boot. I came here to study because I do not like to follow university classes. I prefer to study by myself, in books And the book talks about the curvature of space and time. I’m trying hard to understand, to get it. I raise my eyes to the gleaming still immensity of the waves in front of me, and suddenly I see it. I feel it, like a vision, the curvature of space and time. I get it. My gaze on the nature of reality has been changed, forever. Strange joy is exploding inside me. The book is like a friend, whispering in my ears, and gently leading me to take a glimpse beyond the usual veil. This is a moment in which I understood Einstein’s theory. I was amazed by its beauty and its simplicity. This was 40 years ago. I was in my twenties, sitting on the sand, in front of the sea. The rest of my life I have spent studying this theory and trying to develop it. But every once in a while, I return in my thoughts to that beach. Condofuri. That glimmering sea. For me, spacetime began to bend there.