The Wavewatcher's Companion

One bright February afternoon on a beach in Cornwall, Gavin

Pretor-Pinney took a break from cloudspotting and started watching the

waves rolling into shore. Mesmerised, he wondered where they had come

from, and decided to find out. He soon realised that waves don''t just

appear on the ocean, they are everywhere around us, and our lives

depend on them.

From the rippling beats of our hearts, to the movement of food through

our digestive tracts and of signals across our brains, waves are the

transport systems of our bodies. Everything we see and hear reaches us

via light and sound waves, and our information age is reliant on the

microwaves and infrared waves used by the telephone and internet

infrastructure. From shockwaves unleashed by explosions to torsional

waves that cause suspension bridges to collapse, from sonar waves that

allow submarines to ‘see'' with sound to Mexican waves that sweep

through stadium crowds... there were waves, it seemed, wherever Gavin

looked. But what, he wondered, could they all have in common with ones

we splash around in on holiday?

By the time he made the ultimate surfer''s pilgrimage to Hawaii, Gavin

had become a world-class wavewatcher, although he was still rubbish at

surfing. And, while this fascinating, funny book may not teach you how

to ride the waves, it will show you how to tune into the shapes,

colours and forms of life''s many undulations.