Science Books
drorzel | August 18, 2010We picked up a used copy of Charles Mann's pop-archeology book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus a while back. I didn't read it at the time, because I was a little afraid that it would be rather polemical in what I think of as the Neil Young mode-- wildly overstating the awesomeness of pre-Columbian cultures, and exaggerating the evil of the European invaders (Neil's recorded some great stuff, but the lyrics to "Cortez the Killer" are pretty dopey). It came up several times recently in discussions elsewhere, though, and seemed like it would make a nice break from the…
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 5, 2010We missed the formal presentaion at the World Science Festival stargazing event last night, and it was cloudy enough to prevent actual stargazing, but the giant mock-up of the James Webb Space Telescope is giant and cool even in the dark. More importantly, Neil deGrasse Tyson is awesome. We got there around 9:30, and he was taking questions from an informal group of people having around where the presentation had been. When we left at 11pm, he was still going strong. More amazingly, I don't recall seeing him drink anything.
He may be a robot. A really awesome robot who is amazingly generous…
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),…
drorzel | June 1, 2010Two noteworthy events related to How to Teach Physics to Your Dog in the next month:
First, and most important, I'm going to be signing books at the Author's Alley portion of the World Science Festival Street Fair. The fair itself is in Washington Square Park in Manhattan, though the name of the signing program is a little misleading-- rather than being in an actual alley, the signings will be on the eighth floor of NYU's Kimmel Center, on the south side of the square. I'm signing at 1:30, and there are plenty of other books and presentations on offer, not to mention festive happenings…
drorzel | May 24, 2010This is the presentation I gave to the International Baccalaureate class from Schenectady High School today. I tend to re-use talk titles a lot, but this is substantially different than the last talk with this title, as the previous group had read How to Teach Physics to Your Dog first. For this group, I spent more time on applications, and took out a few details.
What Every Dog Should Know About Quantum Physics
View more presentations from Chad Orzel.
We were pressed for time, so I ended up not being able to show the video embedded in the next-to-last slide (this one), which is a shame.…
drorzel | May 19, 2010I spent yesterday going over proposed copy edits to Anglicise How to Teach Physics to Your Dog for the forthcoming UK edition, which adds "Quantum" to the title, and will have all new cover art, etc. This means that clergy in the book are now permitted to marry, all book property belonging to the Catholic Church has been seized by the Crown, and an "s" has been added to "math" every time it appears (weirdly, it doesn't seem to actually pluralize the word, leading to the jarring construction "maths is" in several places). My favorite parts of the changes:
The evil squirrel in Chapter 10 gets…
drorzel | May 18, 2010It's been a very long day, so I'm lying on the couch watching
"Pardon the Interruption" on ESPN. They're having a boring
conversation about baseball, and I'm just drifting off into a pleasant
doze when:
"Fear! Fire! Foes! Awake! Fear! Fire! Foes! Awake!"
I jolt awake. "What are you barking at?!?" I yell at the dog, who
is standing in the middle of the living room, baying at nothing. She
stops.
"Scary things!"
The room is empty. "There's nothing here," I say, and then hear a
car door slam. I look outside, and see the mathematician next door
heading into his house. "Were you barking at Bill? He…
drorzel | May 16, 2010A few upcoming events related to How to Teach Physics to Your Dog:
The big one is that I'll be aprt of the "Author's Alley" portion of the World Science Festival Street Fair in New York City on Sunday, June 6th. The last couple of these have coincided with out-of-town trips for me, so I'm glad to get to go to this year's World Science Festival, which includes a whole bunch of cool-sounding stuff. The Street Fair is an eight-hour affair, while I'll only be signing books for an hour or so during that span; I'll post a more specific time when I get it.
On Sunday, June 19th, I'll be signing…
drorzel | May 11, 2010I should note up front that I'm kind of jealous of Marcus Chown regarding this book. Subtitled "What Everyday Things Tell Us About the Universe," The Matchbox That Ate a Forty-Ton Truck is a book that uses trivial everyday observations-- the fact that you don't fall through the floor, the fact that the sky is dark at night-- as a jumping-off point for discussions about deep and fundamental scientific ideas like Pauli exclusion and inflationary cosmology. It's a fantastic idea for a pop-science book, and I wish I'd thought of it first.
The range of topics here is pretty big, covering most of…
drorzel | May 6, 2010My publisher would like to include a Teacher's Guide with the paperback edition of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. which means that, well, I need to put together a Teacher's Guide for How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. The problem is, I'm not exactly sure what should go in that sort of thing.
So, if you have any opinions on the subject of Teacher's Guides for pop-science books in general, or can point to examples of Teacher's Guides that you particularly like, or have suggestions for what ought to be in a Teacher's Guide for How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. If you were a teacher planning to…
drorzel | May 5, 2010It's been a couple of weeks since I did an update on How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, but that's been as much laziness as a lack of news. Some developments, mostly relating to foreign lands:
The US paperback edition is slated for December release. I'm working on a Teacher's Guide to go with it-- suggestions on what ought to be in there are welcome, as I have no idea
If you do the right search, you'll also find a forthcoming UK edition which will be out this fall with a slightly different title. There's a production schedule for this, and everything-- more information as things become…