Einstein's Universe, Niger Calder

Einstein's Universe is an effort to capture the view of Einstein, particularly related to how he saw gravity, for the "common man."  The book has been favorably reviewed for years and I have a concern that it is rather dated.  The edition I am reading was published in 1979.  The book was intended to be a review of Einstein's theories on the 100th year of his birth.

Started: October, 2009
Completed: November 18, 2012
Recommended by:  Nobody, I picked this up at a library book sale
Recommendation:  Pick another physics book or get an edition that has been recently updated.
Review: 
As I expected, this book is generating some questions as I read it.  Right off the bat, there is a discussion of Doppler shift.  This discussion got me thinking about waves and what a wave is.  A wave is really just a special case of how matter is moving at any given time.  When you look at a wave on the ocean, you don't attribute the wave any properties that water doesn't already have.  The wave is sort of the look of the water.  So, if waves are something moving through matter, how do waves move through empty space?  I think they don't.  Surely this has bothered others since there is the wave/particle duality of light.

Speaking of wave/particle duality, I wonder of the pattern that shows up on the double slit experiment isn't caused by the light particles hitting and bouncing off of the insides of the slits (which must be zillions of times bigger then the light particle)?  I've wondered if the same results would occur if someone used a pitching machine to fire baseballs down a tunnel and into a board posted on the other side of the tunnel.  Would the interaction of the individual balls with the walls result in same kind of interference pattern seen in the double slit experiment?  I think it would, but I haven't done the math.  Something for another day.  Maybe these questions will make it to the other blog, "Old Curmudgeon Says."

I sure do like the way that the Nigel Carter explains why light should have weight.  It is counter-intuitive, but Mr. Carter is so clear and lucid in his explanation (quoting from Einstein as well) that it is obviously clear that light should have weight.

--so, some years later.  I have picked this book up and put it down so many times that it has frequently become lost.  As I have read more and more, I have found that it is increasingly out of date and (at least the version I'm reading) is misleading.  So, I have decided to stop reading it.