Waves in an Impossible Sea: Reader Resources

[Under Construction!]

My book Waves in an Impossible Sea tackles challenging subjects and raises puzzles that even the clearest writing might leave unanswered. Fortunately, this is the twenty-first century; the author is accessible for questions, and the book continues to live and grow on these webpages.

• Got a question about something I wrote in the book? Ask me a question here. (If it’s an advanced question that is related to the book but goes well beyond the book’s scope, you might consider asking it here instead.) I’ll do my best to point you do an answer. Over time I’ll be assembling your most common questions, and my answers to them, into chapter-by-chapter lists of frequently asked questions [FAQs].
  
  
• Over time, I’ll be extending the material of the book, covering subjects that couldn’t fit inside its pages. Much of this will also be organized by the chapter of the book to which it most closely relates.
  
  
• The book’s table of contents is below; each link will take you to a page where supplemental material will be housed. Still under initial construction, this material will continue to grow over time.
  
  
• If you’re looking for commentary on the endnotes, as promised in the book, click the chapter headings below.  Some things have been added, others are still in the works.

• If you’re looking for the book’s endnotes, they will be available shortly.
  
  
• If you’re looking for the book’s figures, they are available in multiple formats here. Helpful animations of some figures will soon be available.

Much more to come in the near future!

 

Information and Discussion by Chapter

• • 1 Overture 1
• Part I: Motion
  • 2 Relativity: The Greatest Illusion 15
  • 3 Coasting: Easier Than It Appears 29
• Part II: Mass
  • 4 Armor against the Universe 45
  • 5 Enter Einstein: Rest Mass 63
  • 6 Worlds within Worlds: The Structure of Material 79
  • 7 What Mass Is (and Isn’t) 97
  • 8 Energy, Mass, and Meaning 106
  • 9 That Most Important of Prisons 115
• Part III: Waves
  • 10 Resonance 125
  • 11 The Waves of Knowing 140
  • 12 What Ears Can’t Hear and Eyes Can’t See 151
• Part IV: Fields
  • 13 Ordinary Fields 169
  • 14 Elementary Fields: A First, Unsettling Look 182
  • 15 Elementary Fields: A Second, Humble Look 212
• Part V: Quantum
  • 16 The Quantum and the Particle 225
  • 17 The Mass of a Wavicle 234
  • 18 Einstein’s Haiku 251 
• Part VI: Higgs
  • 19 A Field Like No Other 257
  • 20 The Higgs Field in Action 262
  • 21 Basic Unanswered Questions 279
  • 22 Deeper Conceptual Questions 290
  • 23 The Really Big Questions 295
• Part VII: Cosmos
  • 24 Protons and Neutrons 311
  • 25 The Wizardry of Quantum Fields 320
  • 26 Coda: The Extraordinary in the Ordinary 327