The Wavewatcher's Companion

The Wavewatcher's Companion is a 2010 science book by Gavin Pretor-Pinney.

The book was the 2011 winner of the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books.

Theme

The book is a wide-ranging discussion on waves in all their forms and how waves are such an intimate part of our lives.

The book's topics include:

• waves that exist within our bodies;
• the waves that give rise to music and colour;
• the waves that drive the information age;
• and the waves of nature, of the earth, sea and air.

As Jennifer Ouellette of the Wall Street Journal describes, Pretor-Pinney 'employs a chatty, conversational tone, with clear technical explanations enlivened by real-world examples, whimsical asides, personal anecdotes and inventive analogies' to explain his subject.^[1]

Reception

The book was well received on its publication. Victoria Segal of The Guardian enthused that Pretor-Pinney "has the gifted teacher's knack for finding the right metaphor to hook the attention".^[2] Toby Clements of the Daily Telegraph felt it was a worthy sequel to Pretor-Pinney's previous surprise best-seller, 'The Cloudspotter's Guide.^[3]

The book was the 2011 winner of the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books,^[4] the prestigious award for science writing. Richard Holmes, the Chair of judging panel, said it was a 'highly unusual and outstandingly effective piece of popular science writing and that Pretor-Pinney "had managed to use relatively straight-forward science to transform the readers' perspective of the world around them".^[5] Richard Holmes noted the importance of the award stating “Popular science is an increasingly important genre, and this is an increasingly important prize".^[4]

References