By Chad Orzel
Oneworld
Hardback: £7.99
When I first sat down with How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog I was expecting a little light reading, something to pick up on Sunday after lunch. After all, if a dog could understand it, surely someone who has a PhD in physics wouldn’t find it too challenging? I was wrong.
Initially Chad Orzel’s analogies with squirrels and dog wavefunctions are both amusing and enlightening, but as the book moves on they don’t make his subject any clearer. By the time he has reached incoherence it is hard to see how anyone without a good grounding in physics would cope. But it is worth persevering.
Orzel’s style – especially his references to dog treats, bunnies and squirrels – get irritating at times, but despite this I found myself enjoying the book.
To quote Orzel, “quantum mechanics is often subtle and difficult to understand”. His book reminds us why that is, and overall he succeeds in making it a little clearer.
