An ambitious journey through the cosmos that sometimes gets lost at sea – Physics World

<a href="https://platoblockchain.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/an-ambitious-journey-through-the-cosmos-that-sometimes-gets-lost-at-sea-physics-world-2.jpg" data-fancybox data-src="https://platoblockchain.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/an-ambitious-journey-through-the-cosmos-that-sometimes-gets-lost-at-sea-physics-world-2.jpg" data-caption="Serious matter Interactions with the Higgs energy give mass to the known elementary particles, excluding the Higgs boson. According to Matt Strassler, oversimplifications made by journalists when explaining this important concept can hinder public understanding and damage trust in science. (Courtesy: iStock/agsandrew)”>

Turn off the Higgs field – an energy field thought to emanate throughout the universe – and life as we know it would cease to exist. Our bodies would explode, and Earth would detonate as the universe obliterated itself. Flick the switch the other way – so that the Higgs field is on full blast – and the cosmos and all it contains would instantly shrivel into a tiny ball of nothingness. While both scenarios might sound far-fetched, altering the strength of the Higgs field from its current “Goldilocks” value would tip the scales, as theoretical physicist Matt Strassler explains in his debut book Waves in an Impossible Sea: How Everyday Life Emerges from the Cosmic Ocean.

But what exactly is this Higgs energy field and why does it have so much control over our existence? To provide answers, Strassler takes readers on a comprehensive tour of the physics of the cosmos. Using questions he has received from non-physics friends and newly enrolled undergraduate students, Strassler explores why living creatures are mostly empty space; what lies beyond the shimmering hues of the visible parts of a rainbow; and why waves and wavicles (no, that is not a made-up term, it’s a portmanteau of wave and particle) are the key ingredients to understanding the universe.

This journey is far from easy-going. From the very beginning, Strassler acknowledges that many readers will find his book arduous – and I wholeheartedly agree with that conclusion. At multiple points during my slog through the book, I came close to slamming the pages shut and emailing my editor to tell them they needed to find me another text to read. The book is so littered with nuanced discussions, that to make sense of them I had to re-read passages again and again, while referring to the glossary to make sure I had the exact meanings correct for the many technical terms Strassler uses.

Motivations and misunderstandings

That brings me to my main qualm: I don’t know who the book is for. It certainly isn’t me – someone who studied physics at university and is reasonably well-versed in the concepts of the discipline, but who doesn’t want to spend their free time reading what is essentially a textbook.

In the book’s introduction, Strassler writes that his main motivation for sharing his knowledge of the cosmos is to tell “the full story of how modern physics and human life fit together”; a lofty goal. He peppers the book with existential questions – “Where am I? And where am I going?” – and physics-themed life lessons. But for me they fell flat, reminding me of the pithy aphorisms contained within fortune cookies. At one point he discusses how three people would experience each other’s speed when one is standing on the Moon, one is sitting on a park bench and the other is driving a car at 40 mph. (Spoiler, they all think they are stationary and that the others are moving, in some cases at colossal speeds.) Strassler surmises, “When something’s relative, everyone disagrees, yet no one is wrong.” Queue the groans and eye rolls.

For me, Strassler’s incentive for writing the book had a completely different origin: correcting the wrongs of science writers and journalists telling “phibs” about the Higgs field. A phib – a word coined by Strassler that means physics fib – is an explanation of an idea that is so oversimplified that it deceives the reader and distorts reality. Correcting Higgs phibs – which, according to Strassler mostly involve the Higgs field being described as a soup-like substance that fills the universe and gives objects their mass – is a much narrower remit. And while Strassler does complete that goal, he didn’t need 330 pages to do it. His detailed explanation goes way beyond what I, or any other science writer, needs to know to pen an accurate summary of this concept for someone with no formal physics education.

There is a place for this book as an educational tool, just not for non-scientists

But I do think there is a place for this book as an educational tool, just not for non-scientists. With its near absence of equations, this popsci-esque textbook provides a path for undergraduates to understand concepts such as general relativity, rest mass and wave-particle duality, in a way that a sequence of numbers and letters might not. And as textbooks go, this one contains many little gems, such as Strassler’s frequent forays into physics culture and jargon.

It is no secret that scientists assign words different meanings compared to those used in everyday conversations, which can lead to confusion. Many of these misunderstandings are inconsequential, but as discussions around the COVID-19 pandemic or climate change continue to highlight, others can lead to mistrust and the spread of disinformation. Strassler carefully walks the reader through the possible misunderstandings different social groups may have of words such as theory, massive and matter in a way I found insightful, thought-provoking and humorous. For example, on discussing with a friend the many definitions of mass and energy used both inside and outside of physics, Strassler notes his friend “suggested that physicists might need some adult supervision – perhaps a committee of outsiders to oversee our terminology.” And he agrees – “Not an unreasonable idea.”

• 2024 Basic Books 384pp $32.00hb

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• Source: https://physicsworld.com/a/an-ambitious-journey-through-the-cosmos-that-sometimes-gets-lost-at-sea/