Friday, December 25, 2009

Uncertain Christmas Gift

At first, this gift was in a mixed state.


It was clearly a book, and the odds favored it being a particular book, but could we know for sure without opening it?


Ah, now we know for sure ...

It is a GREAT book!

Notes added to correct a major oversight -

Link to the How to teach physics to your dog book web site. (Chad gets an extra cut if orders go through there.)

Here are the two semi-famous blogs that started it all:

Those stories are the basis for two of the chapters. Each chapter starts with a dialog with Emmy, followed by an elaboration on the science behind that idea.

Chad deserves major kudos in my view for including a final chapter that debunks much of the junk that has been written based on pseudo-quantum non-science.

Other material can be found in Chad's general category of Physics with Emmy, but that is mostly about writing (including the story of how he got the book contract) and promoting the book. So you don't have to dig through all of that for the best bits, here is the link to one that includes the slides from a talk he gave, and two movies that deserve special mention: The Bohr-Einstein Debate (with puppets) should not be watched while drinking coffee. The choice of character actors is, shall we say, priceless. But it is not just whimsy. As a long-time student of those discussions and owner of a personal library of some of the key books, I think Chad did a very good job selecting what belongs in his little play.

2 comments:

Unbalanced Reaction said...

Some excerpts, please!

Doctor Pion said...

My bad. I left out a link to the book web site, and even one to Chad's blog (which is always great fun).

I have fixed that oversight with an added note.

I'll add that you might find some tasty morsels in that book (or his blog) when teaching aspects of the quantum basis for chemistry. Chad's area of expertise is atomic and molecular physics.