Do Colors Exist?: And Other Profound Physics Questions by Seth Stannard Cottrell (PDF)

Description

Why do polished stones look wet? How does the Twin Paradox work? What if Jupiter were a star? How can we be sure that pi never repeats? How does a quantum computer break encryption? Discover the answers to these, and other profound physics questions!This fascinating book presents a collection of articles based on conversations and correspondences between the author and complete strangers about physics and math. The author, a researcher in mathematical physics, responds to dozens of questions posed by inquiring minds from all over the world, ranging from the everyday to the profound.Rather than unnecessarily complex explanations mired in mysterious terminology and symbols, the reader is presented with the reasoning, experiments, and mathematics in a casual, conversational, and often comical style. Neither over-simplified nor over-technical, the lucid and entertaining writing will guide the reader from each innocent question to a better understanding of the weird and beautiful universe around us.Advance praise for Do Colors Exist?:“Every high school science teacher should have a copy of this book. The individual articles offer enrichment to those students who wish to go beyond a typical ‘dry curriculum’. The articles are very fun. I probably laughed out loud every 2-3 minutes. This is not easy to do. In fact, my children are interested in the book because they heard me laughing so much.” – Ken Ono, Emory University

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐This is a nice little collection of answers to questions posed to the author over the years. It seems to be initiated by a trip to burning man where the author traded his answers to general physics questions as a medium of exchange, which must be a first. Nonetheless the book has a lot of knowledge condensed in a fairly short space while being intuitive almost throughout. There are areas where the author’s natural background in math becomes apparent over the books substance which is physics, but that doesn’t take away from the book at all. Not entirely sure the intended audience but it can be quite wide, though for novice some will need to be glossed over while for the expert much can be skipped.The author splits the book into 4 sections, though the distinction is somewhat arbitrary. The first section focuses on larger scale questions which inevitably focus on gravity and special relativity. The author describes Lorentz transformations, dark energy and matter, background radiation from the big bang and the expanding universe. The topics can be quite nuanced and the author describes why matter clusters in rings around large spherical masses as well as the complex climate of a non-spherical planet. As mentioned, the questions the author answers are ones that he has been asked over the years to which there is a reasonably short answer, thus they represent a broad inquisitiveness of a general population rather than the authors collection of things he wants to tell you. The author then moves on to the quantum scale and again tackles a lot of diverse questions. Parts of it are pretty challenging if you don’t already know what hes talking about, in particular the author describes ladder operators in angular momentum as well as Bell’s inequality and quantum locality. One doesn’t need to follow all the math to understand the general arguments but if one does understand the math, the author’s writing style provides some intuitive, not textbook style formulaic reasoning which helped reinforce some concepts for myself. The author gets into Shor’s algorithm as well for cryptography and goes through the essence of the methodology which i thought was quite bold yet the outcome was pretty reasonable. The third section is called in-between things, which the author focuses on more general physics questions. He tackles things like the book title’s question ie Do Color’s Exist, why we don’t feel the rotation of the earth via atmospheric drift, Maxwell’s equations and how they imply the wave equation with propagation at the speed of light as well as whether life is able to globally decrease entropy (something which it can do locally). I thought the Maxwell’s equations essay was very well communicated. The author ends with a section on math questions, including a proof that pi is irrational as well as an overview of Fourier theory and its broad relevance with an included focus on how it is used in modern day communication channels.Do Color’s Exist is an interesting collection of answers to a wide variety of specific physics and math questions. Some are specific ideas related to a narrow field and some are just questions on topics many of us think of but never ask anyone about. As mentioned the target audience is wide and i believe a lot of people can get something out of the book. I found it almost uniformly interesting, didn’t agree with all of the commentary, but got something out of every section. Definitely recommended for the more scientifically interested reader.

⭐Why I think this book is special is the author always keeps in mind the perspective of a layman in providing explanations behind the answers, but also aims to do justice to the math and physics as much as possible. Often when looking up an answer to a question you get all of one or all of the other and it’s hard to bridge the gap to understand what it’s all about. He keeps a healthy dose of humor throughout too, so the material never seems too daunting or unapproachable. It’s a really good book for someone who has always been curious about physics and the natural world and wants to know more. The explanations often help me gain a better appreciation for concepts I remember from high school, seeing ways how they connect and relate. It’s a feeling like having two sections of a jigsaw puzzle assembled and someone comes along and points out actually these go together and fit each other. I like how I frequently come away seeing things in a new light. I often wind up with new questions I hadn’t thought to ask before.

⭐In this book you can discover the answers to many questions you have always wanted to ask, and many more that you never thought to ask. The answers are simultaneously profound, humorous, simple, and technical. If you just want the basic idea, it is right there in simple english. If you want to dig in to the math and understand the details, you can find that too.This is a perfect book for people who enjoy “XKCD” and “What If?”.

⭐Do Colors Exist, and Other Profound Physics Questions is a remarkable book consisting of 54 fundamental questions, each with an answer 3-4 pages long. Particularly enjoyable for me is the bright, conversational style so different from typical academic writing. This book would be engaging for any inquisitive mind and would be a nice addition to the typical undergraduate physics course sequence. A great book for bedtime reading or for taking on a trip..

⭐THIS IS A GREAT BOOK!! When I first saw the title I thought – ‘I don’t know’. But it’s not about ‘colors’; it’s about everything! It answers so many questions that I have always pondered. And, in a way that I can understand. Very, very well written. This book should be on everyone’s coffee table.

⭐I remember reading Arthur C. Clarke’s “2010: Odyssey Two” as a middle schooler and wondering exactly what the implications would be if Jupiter were to suddenly become a star. I wasn’t in a position to answer it then, so it became one of those questions I kicked to the back of my mind and then accidentally forgot over the years — until I saw a section of this book devoted to it. Seth has compiled quite a few sections on these sorts of questions that have been asked by real people over the years, so this book has the feel of a sort of FAQ drawn from the oddball head-scratchers that many of us science fanciers idly wonder about before simply concluding, “That’s a funny thought!” Seth pushes past the impulse to stop at, “That’s a funny thought!” to guide readers through at least another layer or two of technically sophisticated funny thoughts.While some parts of the book are a little technical (I’ve yet to see someone show that pi is irrational without resorting to calculus!), most of the book should be accessible to a reader with a popular understanding of science and a smidge of algebra. Reading “Do Colors Exist?” is like having one of those enjoyable late-night conversations with a friend who knows a lot of things about a lot of things. If you like quirky popular science books in the vein of Randall Munroe’s “What If?” then this would be a great addition to your reading list.

⭐I “rented” this book then quickly returned it because Amazon won’t allow me to download it to my Kindle, only to my iPad or Android device, making it inconvenient for me to read. I’d like to read this book. Hopefully, it will be made available in Kindle format soon.

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