This book came about because there are scientific controversial matters that gnawed away at my peace of mind. So when I retired, I finally had time to write about biomedical topics, about some of the weird phenomena of physics, about the minds of suicide bombers, and about less serious subjects such as the condominium swimming pool. My original intention was to have some of this stuff published in a recognized journal, but one can die (and authors frequently do exactly that) while waiting for publication. Then, my daughter Alice suggested a Web site. What a brilliant and politically-correct idea Eventually, I filled the Web site with 22 short essays. So instead of scientists who are relatively impervious to change, I managed to attract some intelligent laypersons. Many of them urged me to assemble a book out of the essays, but this required expansion: figures, tables, equations, references. The equations are (mercifully) hidden as appendixes at the back of the book. I started to extract an Index, but abandoned it as being unnecessary, in the hope that the title of each Chapter hints at its contents.

"If a child wants proof, we can think of 10 different ways to show that we are surrounded by air, but we are, of course, normally unaware that we live at the bottom of an 'ocean" of air. It is claimed, in this book, that we are unaware, similarly, that we are surrounded by an atmosphere of aether. There is one major difference, however: We have not been able to detect the aether.Nevertheless, the aether provides a solution to the following mystery: How can light, or any electromagnetic wave, travel for billions of years across the vastness of the Universe, without losing any energy? The answer is that the Universe is filled with a light-transmitting medium, The Aether. The proof that there is an aether is the subject of the present book."

"If a child wants proof, we can think of 10 different ways to show that we are surrounded by air, but we are, of course, normally unaware that we live at the bottom of an 'ocean" of air. It is claimed, in this book, that we are unaware, similarly, that we are surrounded by an atmosphere of aether. There is one major difference, however: We have not been able to detect the aether. Nevertheless, the aether provides a solution to the following mystery: How can light, or any electromagnetic wave, travel for billions of years across the vastness of the Universe, without losing any energy? The answer is that the Universe is filled with a light-transmitting medium, The Aether. The proof that there is an aether is the subject of the present book."

This book came about because there are scientific "controversial matters" that gnawed away at my peace of mind. So when I "retired," I finally had time to write about biomedical topics, about some of the weird phenomena of physics, about the minds of suicide bombers, and about less serious subjects such as the condominium swimming pool. My original intention was to have some of this stuff published in a "recognized journal," but one can die (and authors frequently do exactly that) while waiting for publication. Then, my daughter Alice suggested a Web site. What a brilliant and politically-correct idea Eventually, I filled the Web site with 22 short essays. So instead of scientists who are relatively impervious to change, I managed to attract some "intelligent laypersons." Many of them urged me to assemble a book out of the essays, but this required expansion: figures, tables, equations, references. The equations are (mercifully) hidden as appendixes at the back of the book. I started to extract an Index, but abandoned it as being unnecessary, in the hope that the title of each Chapter hints at its contents.