If your old dog won’t learn any new tricks, try teaching it quantum physics instead.
In How to Teach Physics to Your Dog (Scribner), Chad Orzel does just that. A physics professor at Union College, in Schenectady, N.Y., he uses conversations with his dog as a device to explain quantum physics to the layperson.
Each chapter opens with an exchange between Mr. Orzel and Emmy, his German shepherd. Emmy “seizes on some half-understood principle of quantum physics,” Mr. Orzel says, then misguidedly applies it to her own world. The dialogue is followed by a longer explanation of the real physics, with occasional interjections from the dog.
“When things start to get a little thick, I can have the dog break in and ask a question,” he says. “That breaks up the flow of things so it’s not quite so daunting.”
While he could have imagined himself writing a popular science book, Mr. Orzel says, he never expected to write something like How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. The idea came from a couple of posts on his blog (http://scienceblogs.com/principles) in 2007, in which he explained a principle of physics through a comical conversation with Emmy. A literary agent who saw one of the posts told him he had the makings of a book.
Though Mr. Orzel may not teach physics to the real Emmy, he does carry on elaborate conversations with her. “It makes my wife laugh,” he says.
In some ways, Mr. Orzel says, thinking like a dog really can help a person understand physics.
“If you walk your dog down the same street every day for a month, she’ll stop and smell the same things every day, and every day it’s completely new,” he says. “She’s approaching the world with a sense of wonder, and that’s kind of what you have to do to appreciate some aspects of quantum physics.”
With the book in its second printing, Mr. Orzel has done a radio interview and made plans for a couple of book signings, but his life has otherwise remained fairly routine. A dozen or so colleagues sent their congratulations, he says, “and a couple of people have asked me to sign copies for them, which is a little weird, but kind of cool.”