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How to Teach Physics to Your Dog |  | Author: Chad Orzel
Publisher: Scribner
Category: Book
List Price: $24.00
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Seller: purpleturtleproducts
Rating:  35 reviews
Sales Rank: 58565
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 241
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.1 x 1
ISBN: 1416572287
Dewey Decimal Number: 530.12
EAN: 9781416572282
ASIN: 1416572287
Publication Date: December 22, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
When physics professor Chad Orzel went to the pound to adopt a dog, he never imagined Emmy. She wasn't just a friendly mutt who needed a home; she was a talking dog with an active interest in what her new owner did for a living and how it could work for her.Soon Emmy was trying to use the strange ideas of quantum mechanics for the really important things in her life: chasing critters, getting treats, and going for walks. She peppered Chad with questions: Could she use quantum tunneling to get through the neighbor's fence and chase bunnies? What about quantum teleportation to catch squirrels before they climb out of reach? Where are all the universes in which Chad drops steak on the floor? And what about the bunnies made of cheese that ought to be appearing out of nothing in the backyard? With great humor and clarity, Chad Orzel explains to Emmy, and to human readers, just what quantum mechanics is and how it works -- and why, although you can't use it to catch squirrels or eat steak, it's still bizarre, amazing, and important to every dog and human. Follow along as Chad and Emmy discuss the central elements of quantum theory, from particles that behave like waves and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle to entanglement ("spooky action at a distance") and virtual particles. Along the way, they discuss the history of the theory, such as the experiments that discovered that electrons are waves and particles at the same time, and Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr's decades-long debate over what quantum theory really meant (Einstein may have been smarter, but Bohr was right more often). Don't get caught looking less informed than Emmy. How to Teach Physics to Your Dog will show you the universe that lies beneath everyday reality, in all its randomness, uncertainty, and wonder. "Forget Schrödinger's Cat," says Emmy, "quantum physics is all about dogs." And once you see quantum physics explained to a dog, you'll never see the world the same way again.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 35
 Excellent conceptual introduction to quantum mechanics, with history and humor. December 25, 2009
Two kids mom (NM United States)
67 out of 68 found this review helpful
First let me say that I have a degree in physics and in education. I may not be the typical reader but I think I can provide a reasonable review of this book.
The book is a very clear and well delineated explanation of the basics of quantum mechanics. Orzel provides the relevant background needed to understand each section along with a historical outline of how the physics developed. His teaching is lucid and straightforward (think Carl Sagan or Isaac Asimov). The examples and questions are provided outlined in a tongue in cheek manner as discussions with his dog. I am somewhat torn about the verbiage relating to his dog, it is sometimes funny, but can also be distracting. I think in the classroom the humor would come across more consistently. It does add a level of absurdity to the book, and if quantum mechanics is anything, it is sometimes quite absurd to those of us living our daily lives in a classical world.
I also laughed out loud many times while reading the chapter on debunking the snake oil salesmen who try to use various garbled versions of quantum mechanics to explain how their gizmos can provide "free energy" or "improve your health". I have had a lot of conversations with people about these contraptions (and those Amish space heaters advertized in the paper all the time, but that is another issue).
The historical perspective in each section is excellent, specifically the development of wave/particle duality and the Copenhagen interpretation. Orzel's presentation of the manner in which theories are developed and tested is superb. For students this is may be eye opening, many of them seem to believe that science develops in a linear and straightforward manner and the examples presented by Orzel show the more convoluted path often taken.
I took a class from Murray Gell-Mann a few years ago (well more than a few years) and we read "The Quark and the Jaguar" as part of our class assignment. After reading the Gell-Manns book and taking his class I felt like I knew a lot more about quantum mechanics, but I had to break up each section and really chew on it to reach that understanding. Mind you, I took quantum mechanics in college, I could do the math, but I had little true understanding of the underlying principles. "How to Teach Physics to your Dog" is a lot less mental work (and substantially less math) and yields an overall understanding of the concepts of quantum mechanics. In a way this book reminds me of Hewitt's Conceptual Physics textbook, the ideas are the most important and the minimal math plays a secondary and supporting role.
This book is appropriate for
* Physics students (after taking classical mechanics) from about high school AP level.
* To read BEFORE you take quantum mechanics at the college level. This book is not going to help you with the differential equations, Fourier transformations and other math, but at least you might know why you are doing them.
* Those with at least some background (or a great deal of interest) in science who wish to grasp the concepts of quantum mechanics. If you have absolutely no science at all you may struggle with some of the vocabulary.
Overall a very enjoyable read, laugh out loud funny at times and a clear and well organized introduction to quantum mechanics for those with interest in science. Highly recommend.
A delightful introduction to Quantum Physics December 28, 2009
Robert C. Ross (New Jersey)
16 out of 16 found this review helpful
I was delighted to read scienceteachermom's positive review of this book here on Amazon; as a general reader with a superficial interest in science and mathematics, it was very helpful to learn that the science here was well founded. (I thought so, but as our Cavalier King Charles often reminds me, I'm not always well informed -- especially when it comes to how much food he should get to eat.)
Chad Orzel's conceit is to carry on conversations with his dog about physics. As an example he describes a solution of the "collapse" problem proposed by Hugh Everett III -- "there is no such thing as the collapse of the wavefunction." After some difficult thinking (by me) through some elegant and clear prose (by Orzel), I was able to make "some" sense of a number of mathematical equations. But as Orzel points out they get complicated very quickly and his dog sets me straight:
"You know, I'm not getting a lot out of these equations."
"You're not supposed to understand them in detail. They're just there to illustrate the increasing complexity of the wave function in a more compact manner."
"So, basically, they're just supposed to look scary?"
"Pretty much."
"Oh, good job, then."
***
Orzel's book is mostly fun for me, a general reader who finds reading about science as much more interesting than almost all science fiction. And, when Orzel takes on what he calls "quantum quackery", I learn stuff that I can actually apply in discussions with my New Age friends. A particularly delightful expose involves analyzing Deepak Chopra's alternative medicine tome, Quantum Healing: Exploring the Frontiers of Mind/Body Medicine.
Orzel says that Chopra uses scientific sounding terms that are just word salad. The theory, as Orzel describes it, "the key is to measure yourself as healthy ... if you always measure yourself to be in fine health, quantum measurement will see to it that you never get sick." By this point in Orzel's text, I had a general sense of how that might work on the quantum level.
But, Orzel points out two major problems: Chopra and others are applying quantum ideas to systems that are far too large to show quantum effects: they are hard to tease out, the largest demonstration involved "only" a billion electrons and for the Zeno effect, only a single particle. More fundamental, quantum effects are fundamentally random -- no matter which wavefunction theory you subscribe to, "there is no way to know in advance how a given quantum measurement will turn out."
***
So long as you have a basic understanding of science and mathematics, and an interest in learning more about both, you will find this charming little book a very pleasant read.
Robert C. Ross 2009
Clear enough for a smart 11 year old January 20, 2010
Unity Dienes (Hollis, NH)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
My 11 year old son is nuts about physics, so I got this book to see how it would go over with him. It did, perfectly. The whole ruse of explaining physics to a dog was hilarious to him and really made concrete some of the things that the author was trying to explain. I had my son explaining to me, laughing, how a dog could walk through a tree if he went slowly enough (with all the physics behind that crazy statement) and then hilariously illustrating what would happen if the dog didn't go quite slow enough. (He'd bonk his head). You'd think he was recounting a Calvin and Hobbes joke. The entire time my son was reading this he kept coming to me with, "did you know..." and "wow! I never realized that" epiphanies. He did say that some of the stuff being explained was really hard, although he jumped to the author's defense saying that he thinks it's not that he did a bad job explaining it, it's just that some of it was, well, tough.
I am very pleased with this book and am so glad I selected it for my son. It seems to be a great choice for an intelligent person without much real physics background who wants to learn about the material.
Central Quantum Physics Clearly and Sharply Explained +++ January 1, 2010
Kevin Kiersky (Olympia, WA USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
"How to Teach Physics to Your Dog" shows that a true understanding of a subject is proven by an ability to explain the central and primary ideas in a clear-and-sharp way. I have not seen such a clear-and-sharp explanation of primary quantum physics since Richard Feynman. Chad Orzel does this with far less advanced math as well. The intervening dialogs with "Emmy", the quantum dog, are fun, and further the explanation of quantum topics. The explanations are BOTH clear AND sharp -- and the explanatory examples and diagrams are just as well-chosen. The explanations are very CLEAR -- as EASY to follow as such quantum topics can be MADE to be. They are also very SHARP -- very careful in their cause-and-effect relations, implications and limitations. Chad Orzel is very picky in a very good way -- knows just what to show, just how far to go and just when to stop.
In particular, I greatly value the Central Principles of Quantum Mechanics EXACTLY as laid-out starting with the first pages of chapter 3. That is -- 1. Wavefunctions -- 2. Allowed States -- 3. Probability -- 4. Measurement --. Chad Orzel explains these four CENTRAL aspects in a very clear-and-sharp way -- and exactly just when and how quantum interpetation and resulting alternatives occur -- and their cause-and-effect relations, implications and limitations. So, it is possible to better understand just what is "real" and "unreal" about quantum physics and the main interpetations of quantum physics -- via the Central Principles of Quantum Mechanics. As Chad Orzel points-out -- it IS quite strange that quantum physics, accurate to fourteen significant figures, can have such latitude in interpetation. Yet, to be sure, after Bell Non-locality has been worked-out and proven via numerous experiments -- there is only so much latitude and no more -- as Chad Orzel shows step-by-step.
I learned some new aspects of quantum physics and cleared-up some murky areas and ideas of my own. This is despite my own fairly advanced physics and mathematics background, including quantum physics. So, I re-learned an over-all lesson -- one cannot assume clear-and-sharp understanding of a given subject without clear-and-sharp review and reflection -- despite knowing many details of the subject. Nothing replaces such a clear-and-sharp overview -- and without it one can get lost in the details and mistaken in application of detailed methods. Of course, the reverse is equally valid -- without knowing even central and primary details of a subject, especially one like quantum physics, there is little chance of good real-world application -- as the very last part of this book shows about murky attempts to apply quantum physics "buzz-words" to various fringe topics such as "free" energy, "easy" alternative technology and "easy" alternative metaphysics. As Chad Orzel states, if seems too good to be true it most likely IS too good to be true. In any case, it seems unwise to so quickly throw quantum names and terms in directions far away from quantum-scale wave-packets +++
A light-hearted introduction to quantum mechanics March 1, 2010
Bojan Tunguz (Greencastle, IN USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
There is perhaps no area of Physics that has garnered as much fascination as quantum mechanics, save perhaps the theory of relativity. Yet in a sense the weirdness associated with quantum mechanics is even more profound than that associated with relativity. Relativity deals with physics of very fast objects, and even though it challenges our normal way of thinking, it still preserves some of the basic intuitions of what does it mean to be a physical object, how we measure properties of those objects, and what those objects can and cannot do. Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, puts all those basic notion to a test. We are forced to reconsider even our basic understanding of what reality is. There have been many popular accounts of Quantum Mechanics over the years, and this book is yet another attempt of bringing this arcane field to the general readership. So despite what the title may say, this is not a book about Physics in general, but just about quantum mechanics. The dog from the title is author's German shepherd, and she is used as a stand-in for all the naïve, "Newtonian" ways of thinking about the world. Each chapter in the book covers a different aspect of quantum theory, and all the discussions are motivated in a light-hearted way by author's "dialogues" with his dog. These "dialogues" are meant to provide some comic relief from the otherwise technical subject matter. As such they work fine, although I am not the biggest fan of author's attempts at humor. The explanations provided in the book are actually very good - they are very well written, accessible to the general audience, and absolutely conceptually correct. This last point should not be taken for granted, as I have seen many attempts at making Physics accessible to the general audience that don't actually do justice to the actual Physics. One thing that I in particular like about this book is that it mentions several more recent experiments that have shed important light at the foundational aspects of quantum mechanics. In that respect this popular treatment is as up-to-date as they come. As a college Physics professor myself, I appreciate all the effort that the author has put into making this material accessible. As far as introductory, non-technical books on quantum mechanics go, this one clearly hits its targeted audience.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 35
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