Chapter 8

The final chapter of the book has some interesting points. It goes over the warping of spacetime (gravity, you see, is not so much a force as it is like putting something heavy on a mattress so that things go down toward the heavy thing when they think they're going straight) and the experimental and experiential evidence for relativity.

I like the fact that there is direct evidence for it.

There is a also a section in which we imagine multiple tiny physicists in tiny individual elevators, which might make a nice allover pattern for quilting cotton or something.

We are then reminded (or informed, if we didn't already know it) that quantum theory and the theory of relativity don't work together. They both seem to be right, to the extent that we can determine their rightness, but they can't both be right at the same time.

Job security for physicists.

The authors also point out -- or, I hope, remind us -- that we only get the new knowledge that allows us to have new technology (like lasers, GPS, and the internet) when we allow people freedom to think about stuff that doesn't necessarily have an obvious and immediate usefulness. And when we also educate people in ways that encourage such thought.

I found this an enjoyable and satisfying book. How about you?