Things have been extremely busy! I have
- written a new article for New Scientist about the familiar-sounding words that we use in physics (such as “particle”) and how they can easily mislead the unwary;
- appeared in an extended Know Time podcast, hosted by a non-scientist, in which we discuss fields, particles and the Higgs boson — core material of my book Waves in an Impossible Sea; and
- learned that the audiobook version of the book is now available for pre-order; it comes out September 24th.
If any of these might interest you, here are the details!
Article on Science and Language in New Scientist
First, about the latest article I’ve written for New Scientist magazine. (My other New Scientist articles can be found at the bottom of this page.) This one is about the interplay between science and language. There are a lot of words in English that have been repurposed by physicists — force, mass, energy, field, etc. — whose meanings for physicists differ, to a greater or lesser extent, from their meanings in ordinary conversational settings. This definitional mismatch creates all sorts of opportunities for misunderstandings.
I also dealt with this issue, to a certain extent, in my book. From my experience teaching, and also writing on this blog for many years, I have come to the conclusion that one can’t properly explain the most important results of modern physics without close attention to this linguistic challenge.
Anyway, in this new article, the focus is mostly on three words crucial for modern physics: atom, force, and particle. I examine how and why their meanings have shifted over time, and the legacies of these shifts for those trying to make sense of physicists’ verbal explanations of how the universe works.
This is my second article of the month; if you missed my article in Quanta Magazine about how the Higgs field truly gives mass to elementary particles, you can find it here. My approach to this topic (also covered extensively in my book) avoids the false analogies of the Higgs field being like molasses, or soup, or anything else that violates the Principle of Relativity. It also draws attention to the connection of these ideas to those of resonance, which is fundamental to the physics of musical instruments.
If you find these articles too brief or too oracular, the book can provide far more details without the use of math. If you actually want some of the math (but not too much), you can find that here on this website, for example here and here. If that’s still not quite what you want, feel free to ask me for guidance, or explore this website further using the Search bar at the upper right of this page.
Know Time Podcast About the Topics of my Book
Shalaj Lawania, on his podcast Know Time, has a terrific series of interviews with a wide variety of interesting people, including but not limited to scientists. I’m very pleased to be added to his impressive list. It’s a real shame that he has relatively few subscribers, given the high quality of what he is doing. I strongly encourage you to check out his channel. You will not be disappointed.
As he always does, Lawania curated a well-structured interview. We methodically covered a wide range of topics from my book, as well as some more general issues about science and belief. The full interview is two hours long! But no worries if that’s way too much; you can listen to various self-contained excerpts that Lawania has separated out.
The AudioBook is Finally In Sight
Since many people find it convenient to listen to books rather than read their texts, it’s not surprising that I’ve often been asked about the audio version of my book, for which we’ve had to wait over six months. But the wait is over. I’m pleased to tell you that the audiobook will finally become available next Tuesday, September 24th. (It can be pre-ordered now.) The company who recorded it wanted a professional reader with an in-house recording studio, so they did not offer me the option of reading it myself. But I am reasonably confident in the skills of the reader they selected.
I’m concerned, though, that the audiobook may be harder to follow than the written text. After all, the written text has many figures and a glossary, and it’s more amenable when one wants to review earlier material that appears again in a later section. To mitigate this, I have put the figures, the tables, the glossary, and the endnotes online on this webpage. That way, while you’re listening to the audiobook, you can have the images etc. open in your browser, so that you can access them easily when they are mentioned.
And I do think you should expect to listen to certain sections of the book twice. The ideas of modern physics are very strange indeed. I’m sure that I myself, before I took physics classes, would have had trouble completely absorbing these concepts the first time through.
Let me know how the audiobook works for you! And if you think there’s anything I can do on this website to make the audiobook easier and more accessible, please let me know.
More to Come
More podcasts and articles are in the works. So is additional supporting material for the book. Stay tuned!
