Physics Books
drorzel | November 3, 2010I have nothing useful or interesting to say about electoral politics, but I suspect that's all people will want to read about today. So here's a book post that's been backlogged for quite a while.
Lisa Randall's Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions dates from 2005, and was, I think, part of the huge spate of string-theory-related books at that time (just before the String Theory Backlash books of 2006). It includes the usual survey of the Standard Model and the problems thereof, with an emphasis on the sort of extra-dimension theories that Randall and…
drorzel | October 28, 2010The Times Higher Education magazine in the UK, that is. They ran a review of my book a couple of weeks ago, which I've only just noticed:
The approach is quite entertaining. The tone of the book is chatty and contains some truly awful puns involving dogs, which, if you can stand them, make it an attractive and lively read. However, don't be fooled - Emmy is no ordinary dog. She can reason with the informed leaps one may expect from a physics undergraduate, despite peppering her conversation with "squirrel", "bunny" and "chase".
If you're in the UK, the edition the review refers to is on sale…
drorzel | October 24, 2010Between my long-ago high-school French and Google Translate, I can tell that this is a good review of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. It does note, though, that reading the book requires knowledge of English to understand it, which is a problem. And, as far as I know, French translation rights haven't been sold yet... French publishers, je vous regarde.
In other foreign-edition news, we've sold German and Turkish rights, so there will be editions in those languages eventually. Emmy was very happy to hear that the book will be published in Turkey, though that was mostly a case of preposition…
drorzel | October 18, 2010As you may or may not be aware, we are once again in the middle of a DonorsChoose fundraiser to support public school students and teachers. The good news is, the Uncertain Principles entry for the 2010 Challenge is in second place among ScienceBlogs blogs with $373 in donations thus far; the bad news it that more than half of that money is from the initial contribution I made when I set the challenge up.
We've done much better than this in the past, but I realize these are tough economic times, and people may not have as much disposable cash to give to charity. I was thinking, though, about…
drorzel | October 14, 2010Emmy and I are in Buffalo today, after a long drive last night, made longer by the NY Thruway authorities decidin to randomly sprinkle lane closures along the westbound portion of I-90. They also made the sadistic move of putting on the "tune to this radio station for information" flashers before the big back-up, and then playing only a recording saying that they were updating the messages on the information network. For at least an hour. Nice work, Thruway idiots. That was positively Pennsylvanian.
Anyway, we're here in scenic Buffalo, where it isn't snowing yet, so don't ask. Which means I…
drorzel | October 7, 2010Between travel and general work craziness, I completely forgot to note that the UK version of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog has gone on sale:
The title for this edition is How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog, and the vanity search keeps turning up mentions to it in the Guardian Bookshop, so I guess they like their dog physics with extra quantum in Britain. Anyway, if you've been waiting and wondering when there would be a version with fewer idiomatic Americanisms, it's here, and available from the usual sources.
This brings the in-print edition tally to five, that I know of: the…
drorzel | October 2, 2010A quick check-in from Tuscaloosa, where we're getting ready to head out for the football tailgating. While I've got a minute, though, here are the slides from my public lecture, via SlideShare:
What Every Dog Should Know About Quantum Physics
View more presentations from Chad Orzel.
These are probably less comprehensible that some of my other talks, as I deliberately avoided putting much text on the slides, which I think works better for this kind of presentation. The down side, of course, is that it's not as obvious what some of the slides mean, if you don't know the intended flow of the…
drorzel | September 28, 2010I am in Alabama at the moment, the temporary owner of a ginormous Ford SUV and a hotel room that even I think is a little more air-conditioned than strictly necessary. Which means that it's time for the How to Teach Physics to Your Dog mini-tour of the Southland. On Wednesday, I'll be driving to and speaking at Berry College at 8pm, then on Thursday, I'll be driving across Alabama to speak at the University thereof at 7:30.
If you're within striking distance of either of those places, come on by and see the talk-- I've got an all-new public lecture for this trip, and I promise it will be…
drorzel | September 23, 2010One of the things I've been stressed about lately is next week, when I'm making a trip to the South, specifically Georgia and Alabama. As I mentioned here earlier, the original inspiration was a get-together with friends from college for the Florida-Alabama football game next Saturday, but it seems a shame to go all that way and not do something book-related, so I have arranged to give four talks in two days. Two of these are research colloquia, but the other two are public lectures that might be of interest to readers of this blog or How to Teach Physics to Your Dog:
First, on Wednesday,…
drorzel | September 21, 2010Got a big box in the mail today, which included author copies of two Asian editions: the Japanese edition, which I had seen before, and this:
That is, obviously, the Chinese edition of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. I say "obviously" mostly because I know that edition was about ready to roll out-- I can't say anything about the actual characters on the cover, other than that they don't include any katakana, and thus it's not the Japanese edition, and they're not hangul characters, meaning it's not the Korean edition. Other than that, I got nothing.
If you can read Chinese, and provide a…
drorzel | August 11, 2010A Japanese physicist who I worked with as a post-doc spotted the Japanese edition of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog in the wild, and picked up a copy. He sent along a scan of a couple of pages of the text, one of which I reproduce here:
I had totally forgotten that Japanese books are often printed with the text in vertical columns from right to left, which creates a slightly weird effect. What's even stranger, though, is the way the equations are done-- they're also rotated to be vertical, but the kanji characters are rotated as well. Not that the rotation changes the readability in any…
drorzel | July 25, 2010The vanity search this morning turned up something I hadn't seen before:
That's the Japanese edition of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. I knew one was in the works, but hadn't heard when it would be out.
Of course, I can't read any of it other than my own name (rightmost column of the cover text, from top to bottom). So I turn to Google Translate, which does wonders with the product description:
Dogs have been collected by Professor Chad Emmy physics, quantum physics interested in all of the owner. Amazing ideas of quantum physics, every day, "honoring" significant useless wanted to apply…
drorzel | July 21, 2010If you're in the UK, you may very well be thinking "You know, I love the idea of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, but I find American idiom very intimidating. If only there were an edition just for people like me..."
Well, hypothetical UK person, your prayers have been answered:
This is the cover for How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog, coming this fall from Oneworld books to a bookshop on the high street near you. With "yard" changed to "garden," and other minor linguistic tweaks to make it more comprehensible in Merrie Olde England and other such places. Also, an index, which the…
drorzel | July 2, 2010Summer is here, which means vacations for lots of people, which means "beach reading"-- trying to read a book or two while kicking back somewhere. The ideal beach read is something that isn't so heavy as to bring you down or demand too much attention, but is also serious enough that it's not embarrassing to be seen in public reading it.
Clearly, the best choice for beach reading this summer is How to Teach Physics to Your Dog-- it's got real, solid physics, but also a talking dog. What more could you want?
What if you've already read How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, though? Are there other…
drorzel | June 23, 2010The US managed to survive yet another appalling lapse of officiating and beat Algeria 1-0 on a goal in stoppage time. Simultaneously (in some frame of reference), England beat Slovenia 1-0. With South Korea advancing yesterday, countries with current or forthcoming editions of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog are 3-0 when it comes to advancing past group play. Meanwhile, France, where rights have not yet sold, was eliminated.
I'm also happy to report that Spanish translation rights have been sold, and a translation is in progress, so Spain can go into their final group play game without…
drorzel | June 23, 2010I don't remember who pointed me at this transcript of Deepak Chopra interviewing Michio Kaku, but if I remember who it was, I fully intend to hate them.
DC: Is our conversation affecting something in another galaxy right now?
MK: In principle. What we're talking about right is affecting another galaxy far, far beyond the Milky Way Galaxy. Now when the Big Bang took place we think that most of the matter probably was vibrating in unison.
DC: So it was already correlated?
MK: It was already correlated. We call this coherence or correlation. As the universe expanded, we're still correlated, we'…
drorzel | June 19, 2010As I was heading out with SteelyKid to do some shopping, I noticed that the mail had arrived, including a large book mailer from my agent. I was a little puzzled as to what that could be, but left it for my return. Where I was pleased to open the envelope and find:
That's a copy of Como Ensinar FÃsica ao Seu Cachorro, that is, the Portuguese translation of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. I can't directly read a word of it, of course, but having written the original, I can identify some key amusing phrases, such as "Coelhos feitos de queijo" and "Cuidado com os esquilos perversos," which is…
drorzel | June 18, 2010Today is my birthday-- my age in dog years is now equal to the freezing point of water in Kelvin (to three significant figures). I'm celebrating by not reading anything that might piss me off, and by spending the day at home watching soccer (about which more later) and getting some stuff done around the house. I'm working on a nice surprise for SteelyKid, which should be finished this weekend, if the weather cooperates.
I do want to remind those of you within striking distance of Schenectady, though, that I will be signing How to Teach Physics to Your Dog tomorrow, Saturday the 19th, from 1-2…
drorzel | June 14, 2010There was a nice story in the Schenectady Gazette about How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. I'd love to link to it, but the Gazette paywalls everything, so all you really get is the story title, unless you subscribe. And if you subscribe to the Gazette, you don't really need me to tell you there was a story in it about my book. So you'll just have to take my word that ther's a story, and a nice short review.
The reason for this late attention is that I'll be signing books at the Open Door bookstore in Schenectady this Saturday, the 19th. In fact, they did up a nice little flyer for the signing…
drorzel | June 4, 2010Over at Inside Higher Ed they have a news report on complaints about the content of required reading for students entering college. This comes from the National Association of Scholars, a group dedicated to complaining that multiculturalism is corrupting our precious bodily fluids pushing aside the shared heritage of Western civilization, so most of it is pretty predictable. I was surprised by one thing in their list of commonly assigned books this year, though:
What are the freshmen reading? Based on the report's analysis of 290 programs (excluding books that are required parts of courses),…