Miscellaneous stories and links about How to Teach Physics to Your Dog:
— There’s a nice review by Margaret Fisk (who has been reading it for a while, and mentioning it on her blog, which kept turning up in the vanity search):
Orzel does a wonderful job of finding physical parallels to explain quantum concepts in ways that make a reasonable amount of sense, whether in the behavior of dogs on a walk or the “magically” refilled food bowl. Though scientifically inclined, through a series of events I ended up with little formal training, and this book is written for people in just that situation-curious but untrained. Orzel only lost me once, on the concept of quantum teleportation (which is nothing like Star Trek and Orzel explains why), but a couple days, and a few more pages, later I have a pretty solid picture in my head.
Though I’m a cat person, I’ve been around enough dogs to recognize the behaviors and dog-generated events (unlike the car engine and sports analogies employed by my classical physics prof so many years ago :p). I enjoyed learning with Emmy. She makes a good sidekick…or maybe a bad one. In novels, the author often introduces a new character onto the scene to open the opportunity of discovering the world (a local wouldn’t bother noticing anything). Emmy offers that chance, while at the same time delighting with her fun personality and obsession with the bunnies, especially virtual ones made of cheese. She makes a good stab at stealing the show, sometimes literally by bringing the discussion of a difficult concept to an end (or at least a break) so she can chase a squirrel or two.
— After noting the decay of the sales rank a little while ago, the ranking appears to have leveled off a bit, noodling around in the mid-to-high four digits for the last few days. I’ve been too busy to do anything with the data, and I’m not sure I have a good idea of what to do with it, but if I think of something, you can be sure it’ll end up here.
— Once again, I will be on the Boskone program, signing books Saturday at 1pm, and reading dog dialogue at 9:30 am Sunday.
The book is getting pretty heavy promotion at Barnes & Noble. It’s on the “New Non-Fiction” table in the entrance of the store in Lincoln Triangle… unfortunately it’s on the side away from the Broadway entrance, but the whole first floor gets a lot of traffic.