
Waves in an Impossible Sea
How Everyday Life Emerges from the Cosmic Ocean
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Narrated by:
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Christopher Grove
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By:
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Matt Strassler
About this listen
A theoretical physicist takes listeners on an awe-inspiring journey-found in "no other book" (Science)—to discover how the universe generates everything from nothing at all: "If you want to know what's really going on in the realms of relativity and particle physics, read this book" (Sean Carroll, author of The Biggest Ideas in the Universe).
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. When we drive at highway speeds with the windows down, the wind beats against our faces. Yet our planet hurtles through the cosmos at 150 miles per second, and we feel nothing of it. How can our voyage be so tranquil when, as Einstein discovered, matter warps space, and space deflects matter?
The answer, Strassler reveals, is that empty space is a sea, albeit a paradoxically strange 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. 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.
©2024 Matthew J. Strassler (P)2024 HighBridge, a division of Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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- By: Ed Offley
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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On June 15, 1942, as thousands of vacationers lounged in the sun on Virginia Beach, a massive fireball erupted from a convoy of oil tankers steaming into Chesapeake Bay. By the next day, three ships lay at the bottom of the channel, victims of Lieutenant-Commander Horst Degen and his crew on the German submarine U-701. In The Burning Shore, acclaimed military reporter Ed Offley presents a thrilling account of Degen's rampage along the American coast and of US Lieutenant Harry J. Kane's quest to bring him down.
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Ugh, Perhaps a Second Listen is Required?
- By Matthew on 09-05-15
By: Ed Offley
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Index, a History of The
- A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age
- By: Dennis Duncan
- Narrated by: Neil Gardner
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Most of us give little thought to the back of the book - it's just where you go to look things up. But as Dennis Duncan reveals in this delightful and witty history, hiding in plain sight is an unlikely realm of ambition and obsession, sparring and politicking, pleasure and play. In the pages of the index, we might find "Butchers, to be avoided", or "Cows that shite Fire", or even catch "Calvin in his chamber with a Nonne". Here, for the first time, is the secret world of the index: an unsung but extraordinary everyday tool, with an illustrious but little-known past.
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Maybe a book that should be read rather than listened to
- By Amazon Customer on 11-09-22
By: Dennis Duncan
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Alien Earths
- The New Science of Planet Hunting in the Cosmos
- By: Dr. Lisa Kaltenegger
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Dr. Lisa Kaltenegger
- Length: 8 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Riveting and timely, a look at the research that is transforming our understanding of the cosmos in the quest to discover whether we are alone.
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I really enjoyed her perspective on the subject
- By Vladimir Randy Jeune on 11-02-24
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The River of Consciousness
- By: Oliver Sacks
- Narrated by: Dan Woren, Kate Edgar
- Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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A collection of essays that displays Oliver Sacks' passionate engagement with the most compelling and seminal ideas of human endeavor: evolution, creativity, memory, time, consciousness, and experience. The River of Consciousness is one of two books Sacks was working on up to his death, and it reveals his ability to make unexpected connections, his sheer joy in knowledge, and his unceasing, timeless project to understand what makes us human.
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Important but Less Interesting
- By Michael on 11-16-17
By: Oliver Sacks
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Mapping the Deep
- Innovation, Exploration, and the Dive of a Lifetime
- By: Dawn J. Wright, Kathryn D. Sullivan - foreword
- Narrated by: Gwen Steel, Dawn J. Wright
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Oceanographer Dawn Wright made history in 2022 when she became the first Black person to visit Challenger Deep, the deepest and most unexplored place on Earth—a trip that took her over 10,000 meters beneath the Pacific Ocean’s surface. We know less about the ocean floor than we do about the surface of the moon. To date, barely one-fifth of the seabed has been mapped in high resolution. As an ocean scientist and explorer, Dawn has made it her mission to change that.
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Narrator sounds like AI
- By Kindle Customer on 02-16-25
By: Dawn J. Wright, and others
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Lost in Math
- How Beauty Leads Physics Astray
- By: Sabine Hossenfelder
- Narrated by: Laura Jennings
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Whether pondering black holes or predicting discoveries at CERN, physicists believe the best theories are beautiful, natural, and elegant, and this standard separates popular theories from disposable ones. This is why, Sabine Hossenfelder argues, we have not seen a major breakthrough in the foundations of physics for more than four decades. The belief in beauty has become so dogmatic that it now conflicts with scientific objectivity: Observation has been unable to confirm mindboggling theories, like supersymmetry or grand unification, invented by physicists based on aesthetic criteria.
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A rare glimpse into the inner world of physics
- By Joe on 12-08-18
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Purpose
- What Evolution and Human Nature Imply About the Meaning of Our Existence
- By: Samuel T. Wilkinson
- Narrated by: Mike Lenz
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Generations have been taught that evolution implies there is no overarching purpose to our existence. Some scientists take this logic one step further, suggesting that evolution is intrinsically atheistic and goes against the concept of God. But is this true? By integrating emerging principles from a variety of scientific disciplines—ranging from evolutionary biology to psychology—Yale Professor Samuel Wilkinson provides a framework of evolution that implies not only that there is an overarching purpose to our existence, but what this purpose is.
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Remarkably Well Written
- By Kindle Customer on 03-17-25
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I Heard There Was a Secret Chord
- Music as Medicine
- By: Daniel J. Levitin
- Narrated by: Daniel J. Levitin
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Music is one of humanity’s oldest medicines. From the Far East to the Ottoman Empire, Europe to Africa and the pre-colonial Americas, many cultures have developed their own rich traditions for using sound and rhythm to ease suffering, promote healing, and calm the mind. In his latest work, neuroscientist and New York Times best-selling author Daniel J. Levitin (This Is Your Brain on Music) explores the curative powers of music, showing us how and why it is one of the most potent therapies today.
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Various health issues impacted by music.
- By Anne F. Oneill on 09-22-24
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The Longest Minute
- The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906
- By: Matthew J. Davenport
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 17 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck San Francisco, catching most of the city asleep. For approximately forty-eight seconds, shock waves buckled streets, shattered water mains, collapsed buildings, crushed hundreds of residents to death, and trapped many alive. Matthew Davenport draws on letters, diaries, unpublished memoirs, and previously unearthed archival records, as well as interviews with engineers and geologists, to combine history and science to tell the dramatic true story of one of the greatest disasters in American history.
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History told from those who survived
- By BamaState on 12-26-23
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Metazoa
- Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind
- By: Peter Godfrey-Smith
- Narrated by: Mitch Riley, Peter Godfrey-Smith
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Dip below the ocean’s surface and you are soon confronted by forms of life that could not seem more foreign to our own: sea sponges, soft corals, and serpulid worms, whose rooted bodies, intricate geometry, and flower-like appendages are more reminiscent of plant life or even architecture than anything recognizably animal. Yet these creatures are our cousins. As fellow members of the animal kingdom — the Metazoa— they can teach us much about the evolutionary origins of not only our bodies, but also our minds.
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Philosophy Meets Biology
- By aaron on 01-22-21
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The Human Tide
- How Population Shaped the Modern World
- By: Paul Morland
- Narrated by: Zeb Soanes
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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The rise and fall of the British Empire; the emergence of America as a superpower; the ebb and flow of global challenges from Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Soviet Russia. These are the headlines of history, but they cannot be properly grasped without understanding the role that population has played. The Human Tide shows how periods of rapid population transition - a phenomenon that first emerged in the British Isles but gradually spread across the globe - shaped the course of world history.
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dry
- By Ralph C. on 05-02-19
By: Paul Morland
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The Devil Finds Work
- An Essay
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 3 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Baldwin's personal reflections on movies gathered here in a book-length essay are also a probing appraisal of American racial politics. Offering an incisive look at racism in American movies and a vision of America's self-delusions and deceptions, Baldwin challenges the underlying assumptions in such films as In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and The Exorcist.
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A Critical Masterpiece.
- By Ramon McGee on 05-10-18
By: James Baldwin
What listeners say about Waves in an Impossible Sea
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Lee Ann Moyer
- 12-09-24
Thought provoking
This is a thought provoking book. I read Professor Strassler’s blog Of Particular Significance and also loved his recent interview with Brian Keating. I enjoyed the musical analogies. The work is presented without the math so amateur enthusiasts of astrophysics can enjoy and learn. Great job!
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- steve
- 04-25-25
Very well written
The narration was very well done. I understand more of the subject. I’m not nearly smart enough to understand it all but it is well worth your time
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- Ripley
- 03-15-25
The physics made understandable
Great mix of enough background to push the limits of those of us not lucky enough to be physicists. Example and figures really helped and Table 6 was especially fascinating.
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- Jsaid
- 04-24-25
fascinating, intuitive, and eye-opening
at some point this book will blow your mind . until then , have patience. depending upon your recollection of high school physics, there will be some point in this book where you might be tempted to stop and say "I know all of this." KEEP LISTENING. You will eventually arrive in (what for you are) uncharted waters. that's when strassler's intro-to-physics wave an allergies become really helpful. you will gain a new understanding of the forces and elements that constitute our universe... and your mind will be blown
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- Amazon Customer
- 11-12-24
A Wonderful & Simple Explanation of Mass & Energy
I've been looking for this book for quite some time, a great book for a simple & easily understood explanation of mass & energy. My education is as an engineer, but my passion is in QFT. I have several books by Sean Carrol, Frank Wilczek & Carlo Rovelli, all great books by great authors, but this book has, what to me, is a very comfortably explanation of the interaction of the Higgs field to other quantum fields & the resulting mass & energy. The narration is excellent. Mr. Grove's pronunciation is clear as a bell. Can't recommend this book enough. Will certainly purchase any future books by Prof. Strassler.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Mark
- 01-14-25
No pdf
Throughout the book there are references to a pdf file that is not available from audible. One must do a search on the title to be taken to the author's web page to find the pdf. Not cool, unacceptable. The pdf should be available in the audible app to view as one is listening. I'm sure money is involved in this decision to omit the pdf. Had I known this ahead of time, I would have passed on this title.
Having said that, I'm glad I did not. The authors focus on a field centric view in physics is a welcome departure from the norm. He has managed to force my brain to take a different view of things I already don't understand.
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4 people found this helpful