When physics professor Chad Orzel went to the pound to adopt a dog, he
never imagined Emmy. She wasn't just a friendly mutt who needed a home;
she was a talking dog with an active interest in what her new owner did
for a living and how it could work for her.
Soon Emmy was trying to use the strange ideas of quantum mechanics for
the really important things in her life: chasing critters, getting
treats, and going for walks. She peppered Chad with questions: Could she
use quantum tunneling to get through the neighbor's fence and chase
bunnies? What about quantum teleportation to catch squirrels before they
climb out of reach? Where are all the universes in which Chad drops
steak on the floor? And what about the bunnies made of cheese that ought
to be appearing out of nothing in the backyard?
With great humor and clarity, Chad Orzel explains to Emmy, and to human
readers, just what quantum mechanics is and how it works -- and why,
although you can't use it to catch squirrels or eat steak, it's still
bizarre, amazing, and important to every dog and human.
Follow along as Chad and Emmy discuss the central elements of quantum
theory, from particles that behave like waves and Heisenberg's
uncertainty principle to entanglement ("spooky action at a distance")
and virtual particles. Along the way, they discuss the history of the
theory, such as the experiments that discovered that electrons are waves
and particles at the same time, and Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr's
decades-long debate over what quantum theory really meant (Einstein may
have been smarter, but Bohr was right more often).
Don't get caught looking less informed than Emmy. "How to Teach Physics
to Your Dog" will show you the universe that lies beneath everyday
reality, in all its randomness, uncertainty, and wonder.
"Forget Schrodinger's Cat," says Emmy, "quantum physics is all about
dogs." And once you see quantum physics explained to a dog, you'll never
see the world the same way again.