Looking for the Bacon Boson

Posted by Chad Orzel on February 23, 2012
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I’m grading exam papers at the dining room table when Emmy trots in. “Hey, dude,” she says. “Where do we keep the superconducting wire?”

I’m not really paying attention, so I start to answer before I understand the question. “Hmm? Wire is in the basement, next to the–wait, what?”

“The superconducting wire. Where do we keep it?”

“We don’t have any superconducting wire. And you’re a dog. What do you need superconducting wire for, anyway?”

“I’m building a particle collider! I need superconducting wire for the beam-steering magnets.”

How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog goes on sale next Tuesday, wherever you buy books. The above video is a dramatic reading of the dog dialogue that opens Chapter 8: Looking for the Bacon Boson; E = mc2 and Particle Physics. If you enjoy that, there are 11 more such conversations in the book, along with longer, more detailed explanations of the relevant physics.

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Comments

  1. #1 Andrew G.
    February 23, 2012

    Not for another 3 weeks or so over on this side of the pond, it seems…

  2. #2 Matt Leifer
    February 23, 2012

    Any plans to do an audiobook version? Having a dramatic reading of all the dog dialogues would be great.

  3. #3 Eric Lund
    February 23, 2012

    Has Emmy thought about the cost of digging the tunnel? That’s going to be way more than the kibble. As much as I like the idea of a bacon boson or a steak quark, I don’t think the experiment is practical.

  4. #4 Chad Orzel
    February 23, 2012

    Any plans to do an audiobook version? Having a dramatic reading of all the dog dialogues would be great.

    We sold audio rights to the first one, but I don’t think they ever did anything. Probably because it has pictures in the explanations.

    This one has even more illustrations, to the point where I had trouble finding a good section to read at Boskone.

    Has Emmy thought about the cost of digging the tunnel?

    She’s very good at digging, when she wants to. I think she planned to do it herself for cheap.

  5. #5 Bruce
    February 23, 2012

    Looking forward to the new book, but to combine this and a previous post on language and statistics, when describing a future day shouldn’t “next” only be used when it is more than seven days away? That is when you scan a calendar, the first Tuesday you run across is referred to as Tuesday, then Next Tuesday is the week after that.

    Good Luck