Who knows. Language has developed to describe things that we need to talk about because they happen in a world accessible to our sensory toolkit. Quantum things do not. So we are left with metaphors. I have started to think about particles as a kind of non-local 'fog' that is spread out across the entire universe, with different densities at different, specific, spacetime locations. The particles detected by particle detectors are more like ripples in a field, or "excitations of the sensory material", as German philosopher and physicist Meinard Kuhlmann said in a recent article in Scientific American ("What is Real?", in Physics at the Limits, Scientific American Special Edition Winter 2015). Another facet of the accessibility of this book is that is has very little math. Physics is sometimes defined as the mathematical explanation of the physical world, so how can you do physics without math? The answer is simple. Dogs can’t count, let alone calculate square roots so the author uses concrete examples using bunnies, squirrels and dog treats to illustrate concepts like particle-wave duality and quantum tunneling. This book is an overview of quantum physics. Now I know that most people would rather undergo painful dental surgery than spend their free time reading a book about science, but this book deserves a chance. The author uses the literary devise of explaining physics to his dog to make the topic accessible and interesting. He makes the point that dogs (and nonscientists) have an advantage in learning quantum physics because they have fewer preconceived notions of how the world works, so they can more easily accept some of the basic concepts. Becoming au fait with quantum theory involves a complete suspension of disbelief, as it is so radically at odds with everyday life. Any description requires very good explanations and pictures to get the stranger points across. The premise of this book is that Emmy, the eponymous dog of the title, has a desire to learn about quantum physics matched only in intensity by the urge to chase squirrels and critters (it is a very American book). Emmy bounds in at the start of every chapter with a hare- (or should that be dog?) brained scheme to catch squirrels, or eat steak, or cadge more dog treats, by exploiting an esoteric aspect of quantum physics - thus paving the way for a gentle lesson by her owner, the narrator, in the nature of that aspect and how it works. If the lesson becomes too long or arduous it is broken up by more conversations with the dog, and finally, after the lesson, another dog conversation ensues. Reading this book is rather like taking a simplified undergraduate lecture in quantum physics, minus the equations, where the lecture plan, summary, reminders of where the lecture is going and questions from the audience are rendered in dog-speak. The idea of this revised way of thinking about reality is to reverse the relationship between an object and its properties - and then get rid of the object. Meinard Kuhlmann, one proponent of this way of thinking, gives the example of a ball in the article I referenced earlier - I am going to go beyond what Meinard said, but my thoughts on this subject rest on his idea:

It was heavy reading in all, whilst I relatively enjoyed it, I wouldn't read it again and by the last couple of chapters I found myself almost forcing myself to complete the read... Anybody who was forced by their physics teacher at school to comment on the way that iron filings orientate when brought into proximity with a magnet knows what the classical interpretation of a field is. A classical field is a near-physical object in which every point has a uniquely measurable identity. I can measure the strength of a magnetic field in any one location. I can measure the force between a probe and the charge of an electric field at any point in the field. There are things about quantum physics that fascinate me. What Einstein called “spooky influence at a distance.” Tunneling. Heisenberg uncertainty. Particle-wave duality. Virtual particles. I’m a humanities creative type, and so I struggle to understand the science behind quantum mechanics. But intuitively it makes so much sense, and so I keep trying to understand.I was recommended to read this as a light hearted way to learn a little bit more about Quantum Physics and to be honest, it wasn't that bad. The last chapter is a curious kind of addendum, in which Orzel debunks some of the abuses of the word “quantum” to promote healing scams or free energy scams. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I really like it when scientists take on these kinds of claims and explain why they are bunk and should be viewed sceptically. Also, Orzel does a pretty good job with those explanations. On the other hand, the tone is somewhat different from the rest of the book, so this last chapter feels less connected to what comes before.

Still. There is something that still leaves me unsatisfied. I am perfectly happy, on one level, to learn the maths required and think about 'particles' as state-vectors, and of their propagation as 'probability-waves', but there is something still missing. I still want to develop an intuitive understanding of these processes, I am not entirely content to leave them consigned to the realm of abstract mathematics. Well. For some time while I was reading the book, I was in two minds about my rating. In fact, I was in five minds, one for each potential rating for the book. I existed in a state of superposition of five allowable states at once, and the state vector describing this phenomenon is:If you kindly devote some of your time to reading this review, you may become frustrated. Because I am not referring directly to Chad's book very much. I am expressing thoughts that were triggered through my reading of his book, and I find these thoughts fascinating. Still, there is a link to the book, and you will find it in the middle of my blurb under the heading "A message to Chad". So perhaps we should not try. I feel that quantum physics, just as relativity theory, cannot be understood at a satisfactory intellectual level by reference to concepts we know. I am aware that in my own review, I have done the same, and introduced the metaphors of 'fog' and 'schizophrenic' to capture the behaviour of particles. But of course, while these words may help me to visualise what a state vector is a bit better, they may confuse others even more.

The real surprise for me was that the author goes deeper into the material than I anticipated. Somehow I had the expectation that this would be dumbed down a lot, but the latter half of each chapter proved to be quite informative. There is no room for actual proof or big equations in this book, but I don't think that that would have been fitting in this context. The book starts with a basic introduction to what quantum physics is, and how it differs from classical physics. From there it covers a number of topics, including Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle and the famous thought experiment known as Schrödinger’s Cat. Each chapter starts with a conversation between the author and his dog Emmy about a particular topic. From there the author moves to an explanation of the topic and the experiments used to prove the theory correct. This book is about the author teaching quantum physics to his English speaking dog Emmy. This technique, I think, is supposed to explain quantum physics in such simple words that even a dog could understand. But does the complexity of quantum physics lie just in how it is explained? I don't think so (or probably I am less intelligent than his dog).

So what do we do? Help may be at hand in the form of a new branch of philosophical thought, unhelpfully, and I would even argue incorrectly, called 'trope ontology'. The first part of this weird expression is just a neologism for the expression 'property', and the second part refers to the philosophy of 'existence' (but, I would argue, the use of this expression is misleading, as the classical interpretation of ontology is exactly reversed in this new philosophy). Certain other parts of this book, like explaining quantum Zeno effect and quantum teleportation, I think, could have been done in a better manner. The author was focussing too much on explaining these using dog equivalents that the details of the experiments were missing and it was simply confusing. Not so for a quantum field. Quantum fields are non-local, and their quantities are not assigned to any specific points in space-time. Instead, their values are determined by a mathematical idea called the 'state vector'. The state vector can be formulated as a direct consequence of the superposition state of the 'particles' that give rise to the quantum field. In a baffling feat, 'particles' exist in all their allowed states simultaneously, like a schizophrenic who manages to act out all his different personalities at once. Accordingly, the state vector is a sort of probability-weighted average of all the allowed states of a 'particle'.

The approach is quite entertaining. The tone of the book is chatty and contains some truly awful puns involving dogs, which, if you can stand them, make it an attractive and lively read. However, don't be fooled - Emmy is no ordinary dog. She can reason with the informed leaps one may expect from a physics undergraduate, despite peppering her conversation with "squirrel", "bunny" and "chase". Quantum mechanics seems baffling and troubling to humans because it confounds our commonsense expectations about how the world works.” The book starts off with the main character being Chad, I presume, talking to his dog about bunny rabbits and other garden animals. Each chapter starts off very light hearted and flippant, where he sets the scene and for example, gets the dog to talk to him about chasing bunny rabbits and why they always escape him when he chases.... So the dog has a great idea to split in 2 and go both ways round the tree, that way, the bunny can't escape...

How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog

Anyway, this book gives a good idea about quantum physics and the phenomena associated with it. The author knows his subject very well and knows how to explain it without relying on mathematical equations. I particularly liked how he explained Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. People usually tend to explain it as an inability of measurement, which is not the only reason of uncertainty. Randomness of particles is a law of nature. I'm still utterly bewildered by quantum mechanics, but dang Orzel sure did try. An excellent book. He helped me understand the uncertainty principle in a way I never had before, and if I couldn't quite make the leap to its application in the subsequent chapters, well, I truly don't think the fault lies with the author. I learned a ton, even if I still find it all too slippery to fully grasp.