waves, metaphorically speaking, are kinetic energy, aka energy in motion. the substrate does not matter — it could be anything from water to photons. in the domain of our human eyes and interpretive powers, waves are the substrate in motion. physically, there is both matter and energy in waves. the wave is both the kinetic energy and the molecules or atomic particles in motion. waves, historically, have a range of motion that varies from imperceptible to devastatingly dangerous. for example, the waves of visible light we perceive as yellow are relatively harmless. however, gamma rays can pass through most matter but not all, leaving destruction in the wave’s path. but really, it’s all about control. yellow light might actually be more dangerous to a strand of dna than gamma radiation when directly exposed. however, the strand of dna is normally protected by layer after layer after layer of energy absorbing or reflecting or refracting matter and forces. the earth’s magnetic field protects our dna from most gamma. our skin protects it from most yellow. when humans discovered gamma rays, we hurt ourselves badly. we created gamma rays without understanding their nature and we did the creating in a place without enough of a magnetic field to absorb the energy. it turns out our skin is good for protecting against yellow but not gamma. so the gamma passed right through us and damaged our dna. that was a sad day for us but we learned a lesson. we passed that lessons on to generations of scientists. but now the science of knowledge transference is being lost and soon we will lose our knowledge of gamma. when that happens, one of us will inevitably create gamma again without appropriate protection and we will damage ourselves again. this will happen on a massively large scale, in many categories and across many domains. we will damage ourselves beyond our ability to repair ourselves. we will, in essence, self destruct. beware the waves like gamma. beware.