Theoretical physicist Matt Strassler takes us on an awe-inspiring journey from relativity to the Higgs field, showing how the universe creates everything from what seems like nothing at all.
Analogies are a favorite technique used to explain complex physics topics to nonscientist audiences; however, they are often imperfect, leading to unwelcome misconceptions. Theoretical physicist Matt Strassler calls such efforts “phibs”—physics fibs. Motivated by a common phib used by many scientists (including myself) to explain how the Universe-filling Higgs field can give mass to subatomic particles, Strassler sets out to offer a more accurate description in his new book, Waves in an Impossible Sea. His approach is very ambitious, requiring that he find ways to clearly present one of the most complex and mathematical theories in all of science: quantum field theory.
People often imagine atoms as miniature solar systems, with electron “planets” orbiting a nuclear “sun.” Even those with some advanced training think of atoms as nuclei surrounded by a probabilistic cloud of electrons. Quantum field theory models the subatomic world quite differently. It begins with the Universe being filled with a series of fields. Where these fields are quiescent, space is relatively empty; however, where these fields experience vibrations, particles can be found. Indeed, these quantized vibrations are particles. Electrons are quantized vibrations of electron fields, and quarks—found inside protons and neutrons—are vibrations of quark fields.
According to modern physics, there exists a Higgs field, which interacts with the other fields and changes their properties. It is only through the interaction of the Higgs field and, for example, the electron field that the familiar electron can exist. If this all seems confusing, that’s because it is. Yet Strassler explains it all. In a deft series of chapters, he introduces key concepts necessary to understand how quantum field theory works and the role the Higgs field plays in our modern world. He begins with the principle of relativity and explains the crucial role this principle plays in our understanding of the laws of nature. He then tums his attention to waves and reminds the reader of the features of waves that are critical to quantum theories.
Next, Strassler blends together the ideas of waves and relativity and begins to build an intuitive understanding of quantum field theory. To my knowledge, no other book presents this modern understanding of the nature of matter and energy at a level accessible to the motivated nonscientist. For years, Strassler has written a blog that demystifies complex physics topics (of which I am a long-time fan), and it shows in this book.
This is not to say that Waves in an Impossible Sea is an easy read. Although the writing style itself is engaging and conversational, the topics Strassler discusses are not—especially if one is encountering them for the first time. As he himself concedes, it is likely that some passages will require several readings. – Don Lincoln
“. . . I have come across another book that teaches us new ways of looking at things. It taught me that matter consists of the accumulation not of bits of stuff but of standing vibrations. . . Matt Strassler’s marvelous new “Waves in an Impossible Sea.” . . . makes it possible to understand such things without expertise in physics or math.”
“By the way, I have come across another book that teaches us new ways of looking at things. It taught me that matter consists of the accumulation not of bits of stuff but of standing vibrations. Unlike other kinds of vibrations, standing vibrations cannot penetrate one another. They can thus cluster, forming atoms and therefore matter. I get this — if I got it right! — from Matt Strassler’s marvelous new “Waves in an Impossible Sea.” What makes the vibrations “stand” is the force that drives those Higgs bosons we heard so much about some years ago. Strassler’s book makes it possible to understand such things without expertise in physics or math. The book picks up where “The Dancing Wu Li Masters” left off and deserves the same dedicated readership.” — John McWhorter
“In this illuminating book, theoretical physicist and writer Strassler….delivers a deep understanding of the Higgs boson and the Higgs field… a comprehensive background in a reader-friendly and enjoyable review of mass, energy, waves, fields, and quantum mechanics.”
Although we know that much of the universe is made of matter (dark matter) and energy (dark energy) that humans do not yet fully understand, there is that sticky question of what gives the things that have the kind of mass that we do understand their substance. Another way of asking the question is how can we, and everything else, be here? Inquiries into the nature of mass are challenging even for the greatest of physicists. But in this illuminating book, theoretical physicist and writer Strassler explores the answers and delivers a deep understanding of the Higgs boson and the Higgs field, the field that, as he says, “stiffens all the other known stiff fields.” Without it, the universe as we currently understand it would cease to exist. In order to fully comprehend the Higgs field, Strassler delivers a comprehensive background in a reader-friendly and enjoyable review of mass, energy, waves, fields, and quantum mechanics. Along the way, he poses such mind-boggling questions as what happens if the Higgs field even slightly strengthens or weakens? — George Kendall
“Strassler writes with enviable conversational simplicity, drawing
parallels between the waves and vibrations we know in our everyday
lives—especially those in music—and the
waves and particles of modern physics. . . [His] efforts to illuminate fundamental aspects of the universe’s makeup are commendable—and enjoyable to read: To understand the dance of fields at work in our ordinary, everyday lives is to realize that there’s nothing ordinary about them.”
Reality often seems stranger and more dazzling than the most inspired fiction. Space, for instance, can warp, stretch, and ripple, like rubber, as Einstein taught us. And yet we travel through it, as passengers on Earth, at 150 miles per second—without feeling the slightest resistance. How can that be?
This is among the questions with which Matt Strassler, a theoretical physicist at Harvard University, opens his new book, Waves in an Impossible Sea: How Everyday Life Emerges from the Cosmic Ocean. His answer: Our tangible world—chairs and trees and dogs and human beings—exists not “within” the universe but is made “of” the universe itself, built from the same waves that constitute space.
How do we understand those waves? With quantum field theory, which Strassler argues underlies all of reality. It tells us that everything in our universe is made up of fields, much like our familiar electric and magnetic fields. Particles like protons, electrons, and Higgs bosons are excitations of these fields. How these fields are built and give rise to particles is at the heart of Strassler’s book.
These are weighty concepts, and yet Strassler writes with enviable conversational simplicity, drawing parallels between the waves and vibrations we know in our everyday lives—especially those in music (of which he is a connoisseur)—and the waves and particles of modern physics. In places, he coins delightfully pithy phrases that feel intuitive, for instance the “Higgsiferous ether” for the Higgs field which is at the heart of what imparts mass to certain particles in the universe. The law of inertia is the “coasting law.” A scalar field—a field for a property, like temperature or pressure, which is defined only by a value at every point in space and not a direction—is “non-pointing.”
Strassler also pitches frequent questions about physics in the form of conversations he has had with his students and non-scientist friends. This provides a fun narrative frame and an easy way to resolve any doubts a novice reader might have about the tricky concepts he’s explaining. For instance, Strassler recounts a conversation he had in a coffee shop about the seemingly paradoxical notion that because all motion is relative, we can be both stationary and in motion at the same time: You don’t feel the ground you stand on hurtling around the sun at 150 miles a second. Every fact of the physical universe has to be consistent with this deceptively simple-sounding principle of relativity, which runs like Ariadne’s thread through the narrative to keep us from getting lost.
Strassler uses the relativity principle and the coasting law (law of inertia) to demolish a common misconception—a physics fib, or “phib” as he calls it—about the Higgs boson, an elementary particle that gets lots of time in the spotlight. The particle arises from the “Higgsiferous ether”—aka the Higgs field—and the phib is that it’s a kind of treacly soup which, by virtue of its resistance to motion, “gives objects mass.” If this phib were true, it would mean that the Higgs slows objects down, whereas in fact it allows them to coast, according to the coasting law. If the phib were true, the Higgs field would also slow moving objects but have no impact on stationary objects, a state of affairs that would be inconsistent with the relativity principle.
It’s more accurate, Strassler suggests, to think of the Higgs field as a “stiffening agent” that interacts with the fields of many different particles and turns them from floppy to stiff, much like the gravitational field turns a floppy pendulum that’s swinging all over a place into a bob swinging with metronomic precision. The very things we call particles, in Strassler’s vocabulary, should be called “wavicles”—wavy manifestations of fields, like the different harmonic modes of vibration on a violin or guitar string when it is plucked.
What the Higgs field does is interact with other fields’ “resonant frequencies.” (A resonant frequency is the natural frequency at which a field vibrates when set vibrating and left undisturbed.) The Higgs field interacts strongly with wavicle fields with high resonant frequencies—like those of the top quark and electrons—which are then stiffened, so that their masses can be said to come from the Higgs mechanism. By contrast, the Higgs field interacts negligibly with wavicle fields with low resonant frequencies, like those of gluons which hold together the quarks that make up protons and neutrons. The latter fact is why everyday objects like human bodies, which get almost all their masses from protons and neutrons, have scarcely anything to do with the Higgs boson: 99 percent of their mass comes from the energy of interaction between the quarks and the gluons.
Waves in an Impossible Sea seems mostly aimed at the reader who has read very little about physics. Strassler spends quite a bit of time explaining simple concepts, such as waves and inertia, which many readers of popular physics books should already understand, and may find tedious to revisit. But paradoxically, he omits much of the history of modern physics, which forces him to compress other key ideas. (“I, too, risk contributing to myth-making here,” he concedes in one endnote. “… I am drastically abridging the complex prehistory of Einstein’s ideas …”)
Take symmetry. It’s intimately connected to the existence of conservation laws for energy and other fundamental properties. But the book does not dwell on why the breaking of this symmetry for the electromagnetic and weak forces gives rise to the Higgs mechanism. Historically this was a significant development leading to the discovery of the Higgs field, and touching on it would have illuminated an important principle.
Nevertheless, Strassler’s efforts to illuminate fundamental aspects of the universe’s makeup are commendable—and enjoyable to read: To understand the dance of fields at work in our ordinary, everyday lives is to realize that there’s nothing ordinary about them. As Strassler writes, we are all “wavicle-creatures,” and “the universe sings everywhere, in every thing.” — Ash Jogalekar
“Writer and theoretical physicist Matt Strassler unveils how fundamental physics and human existence intertwine through an imaginative, piece-by-piece deconstruction of… misconceptions… likening the Higgs field to a ‘soup that fills the universe.’ … Abundant with analogies and anecdotes, this book exemplifies how experts should write about matter, motion and mass for the masses. ”
Physicists often struggle to simplify complex concepts for nonexperts, leading to “physics fibs” or “phibs”—straightforward but inaccurate explanations. Writer and theoretical physicist Matt Strassler unveils how fundamental physics and human existence intertwine through an imaginative, piece-by-piece deconstruction of the greatest hits of phibs, from misconceptions about sound-wave vibrations to descriptions likening the Higgs field to a “soup that fills the universe.” Strassler urges readers who want to understand the cosmos to resist the alluring but misleading guides of observation and intuition. Abundant with analogies and anecdotes, this book exemplifies how experts should write about matter, motion and mass for the masses. —Lucy Tu
“Strassler is an imaginative thinker and capable writer… A fine introduction to the cosmos for attentive readers.”
An overview of the universe from neutrinos to gravity.
Theoretical physicist and blogger Strassler, who often works with the Large Hadron Collider, assures readers that they’ll encounter few equations in his book, and he provides the painful truth that many concepts in physics (mass, photons, quarks) are not as simple as they may seem. Faced with a layperson’s question, a physicist often must choose between giving a simple, memorable, and wrong answer, or a correct but incomprehensible one. The author calls these wrong answers fibs or “phibs,” which “are mostly harmless and…quickly forgotten.” Some, however, cause more harm than good. Most readers understand that such exceedingly difficult concepts as quantum phenomena and the Higgs field lend themselves to phibbing. Provided readers pay attention, Strassler is a competent guide to complex topics, but most impressive is his approach to simpler concepts—mass, energy, light—where observation and common sense have been misleading. For thousands of years, people believed that objects moved when pushed or pulled; otherwise, they didn’t. Everything on Earth seemed to behave this way, but the sun, moon, stars, and planets seemed to move eternally, which led many to believe the heavens must be a different realm, perhaps under divine influence. Strassler provides the correct explanation: Newton’s. Many basic phenomena defy reason: Empty space contains stuff; time can change, depending on where you are and how you move; light always travels away at the speed of light no matter how fast you chase it. Popular physics books begin with familiar phenomena and proceed to areas that physicists themselves find difficult. Strassler is an imaginative thinker and capable writer, but late in the text, readers may find themselves struggling. The author suggests reading some sections more than once, so even science buffs will have to concentrate.
A fine introduction to the cosmos for attentive readers.
“It’s not easy to convey the ideas of modern physics without any equations, but also without compromises, making sure every statement is precisely correct. Matt Strassler does it better than anyone I’ve ever read. If you want to know what’s really going on in the realms of relativity and particle physics, read this book.”
Sean M. Carroll
Author of The Biggest Ideas in the Universe
Professor at Johns Hopkins University
Nima Arkani-Hamed
Institute for Advanced Study
2012 Breakthrough Prize Laureate
There is a particular zing you get from good explanations, and Matt Strassler knows how to deliver them. This book is a rare attempt by a noted particle physicist to convey the core concepts out of which the world is constructed in language that truly anyone can understand. Matt says he was motivated to write the book by the many egregious explanations he had read about how the Higgs field generates the masses of elementary particles—and indeed, his version delivers the zing I’ve long sought.”
Natalie Wolchover
Senior Editor, Quanta Magazine
“Matt Strassler succeeds triumphantly in conveying the fascination of the physical reality that underpins our world of atoms and stars. His distinguished expertise, combined with an entertaining and lucid writing style, enable him to lure readers into a ‘deeper dive’ than most physicists attempt when addressing a general readership — and to do this without distortion. He conveys the essence of the deep structures that underpin our natural world in an engaging and accessible way. This book deserves wide readership.”
Professor Martin Rees
Astronomer Royal
“This extraordinary work, reminiscent of the genius of Feynman, will awaken your sense of wonder and unveil the enchantment that surrounds our physical world. From the moment I delved into this captivating masterpiece, I found myself spellbound. It is a mesmerizing odyssey that will forever change how you perceive the world.”
Stephon Alexander
Author of Fear of a Black Universe
Professor at Brown University
