ABSTRACT
One of the goals of this book, as implied by its subtitle, is to promote scientific awareness and literacy and to combat irrationality. To do so, it has to fully explain the inner workings and characteristics of rationality. As the epitome of rationality, science can be an effective sword in the battle against all forms of irrational thinking. And as the epitome of science, physics can make this sword razor sharp. What are some of the characteristics of science?
Materiality is one of the most distinguishing characteristics of science. Starting with Galileo and his inclined planes and blocks or balls, meeting along the way Maxwell and his electromagnetic fields, and finally ending with the most exotic subatomic particles such as quarks and gluons or the gigantic black holes billions of times heavier than Sun, physics exclusively studies material objects. And yes, fields are as material as atoms, molecules, billiard balls, and SUVs (see Section 15.4)! Take the EM field, which consists of photons; the materiality of photons has been established not only by the kicks and nudges they impart on other particles, but also by their capacity to turn into other particles such as electrons and positrons [see Figure 32.4(d)]. Despite the claim of some advocates of the alternative medicine
