Epigraph:
الَّذِي خَلَقَ سَبْعَ سَمَاوَاتٍ طِبَاقًا ۖ مَّا تَرَىٰ فِي خَلْقِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ مِن تَفَاوُتٍ ۖ فَارْجِعِ الْبَصَرَ هَلْ تَرَىٰ مِن فُطُورٍ
ثُمَّ ارْجِعِ الْبَصَرَ كَرَّتَيْنِ يَنقَلِبْ إِلَيْكَ الْبَصَرُ خَاسِئًا وَهُوَ حَسِيرٌ
He is the Mighty, the Forgiving; Who created the seven heavens, one above the other. You will not see any flaw in what the Lord of Mercy creates. Look again! Can you see any flaws? Look again! And again! Your sight will turn back to you, weak and defeated. (Al Quran 67:3-4)
Presented by Zia H Shah MD
Early Life and Career
Talking to atheists or agnostics of different flavors opens up multiple new arena rather than a dogmatic mutual condemnation.
Carlo Rovelli was born in 1956 in Verona, Italy, and grew up in a family that valued knowledge santafe.edu. As a young man in the 1970s, he was actively involved in student political movements at Italian universities en.wikipedia.org. He even co-founded free radio stations in that era and briefly faced legal trouble for his outspoken views (though charges were later dropped) en.wikipedia.org. During this rebellious youth, Rovelli also experimented with LSD – an experience that he credits with sparking his curiosity about the nature of time and reality. He recalled that under LSD he felt time “stop,” which led him to wonder: if a mere chemical can alter our perception of time so profoundly, “how do I know that the usual perception is right, and this is wrong?” en.wikipedia.org. This insight planted the seeds for his later fascination with physics and the fundamentals of the universe.
Rovelli pursued physics in academia, obtaining his undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University of Bologna in 1981 and a PhD from the University of Padua in 1986 en.wikipedia.org. He refused compulsory military service in Italy, a decision that landed him in brief detention in 1977 en.wikipedia.org – another sign of his independent spirit. After his doctorate, Rovelli conducted postdoctoral research in Italy and the United States, including positions at the University of Rome and Yale. In 1990, he joined the University of Pittsburgh faculty, where he also engaged with the history and philosophy of science en.wikipedia.org. Since 2000, he has been based in France as a professor at the Centre de Physique Théorique in Marseille en.wikipedia.org. Throughout his career, Rovelli has balanced cutting-edge research with a deep interest in philosophy, often writing for newspapers and general audiences. By the mid-2010s he rose to global prominence not just as a theoretical physicist but also as a best-selling popular science author, beloved for his clear and poetic writing on complex topics. His short book Seven Brief Lessons on Physics (2014) became an unexpected hit, selling over a million copies in 40+ languages theguardian.com, and he has since published several more works for lay readers, such as Reality Is Not What It Seems, The Order of Time, and Helgoland. These books established Rovelli as a rare figure who is both a leading scientist and a gifted communicator with a philosophical bent.
Read further in PDF file:
The Glorious Quran and Science 
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