Waves in an Impossible Sea: How Everyday Life Emerges from the Cosmic Ocean

Big Think's Best Science Book of 2024 nA theoretical physicist takes readers on an awe-inspiring journey to discover how the universe generates everything from nothing at all. n nIf you want to know what's really going on in the realms of relativity and particle physics, read this book --Sean Carroll, bestselling author of The Biggest Ideas in the Universe n n In Waves in an Impossible Sea, physicist Matt Strassler tells a startling tale of elementary particles, human experience, and empty space. He begins with a simple mystery of motion--our planet hurtles through the cosmos at 150 miles per second, and yet we feel nothing of it. How can our voyage be so tranquil? n n The reason, Strassler reveals, is that empty space is a sea, albeit a paradoxical one. Much like water and air, it ripples in various ways, and we ourselves, made from its ripples, can move through space as effortlessly as waves crossing an ocean. n n Deftly weaving together daily experience and fundamental physics--the musical universe, the enigmatic quantum, cosmic fields, and the Higgs boson--Strassler shows us how all things, familiar and unfamiliar, emerge from what seems like nothing at all. n n Accessible and profound, Waves in an Impossible Sea is the ultimate guide to our place in the universe.n