Description: How would one explain a simple hollow tube that blows hot air out of one end and cold air out of the other? Or determine if an atomic electron has moved? Or decide if an "anti atom" will fall upward? These mysteries and others are dealt with in this book of beautifully written essays, which convey a largely nonmathematical account of some of the strange behavior, both classical and quantum, exhibited by moving particles, fluids, and waves. Drawn from the author's researches in quantum mechanics, atomic and nuclear physics, electromagnetism and optics, gravity, thermodynamics, and the physics of fluids, the essays describe different physical systems whose behavior provokes surprise and challenges the imagination. There are strange processes for which no mechanism can be visualized; processes that seem to violate fundamental physical laws, but which in reality do not; processes that are superficially well understood, yet turn out to be subtly devious.

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