How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update

I haven't been doing these as regularly as I was earlier in the year, but here are a few interesting bits of news about How to Teach Physics to Your Dog:

  • LA FISICA SPIEGATA AL MIO CANE, is now available. That's the Italian edition, which Google translates to something like "Explaining Physics to My Dog." Emmy is disappointed in that translation-- she was hoping it had something to do with spaghetti, preferably with meat.
  • This appears to be a review of the Chinese edition, though I can't read a word of it, and Google Translate isn't really up to the task, rendering one whole paragraph as "Back to Kaohsiung in the car, I read the first time, there is still groggy melon head, after all, quantum mechanics junior to me, already a distant memory, I am the only impression the original textbook Stop being a hypocrite, a operand stack strange. (I say how nice pass, I really forgot)." While I like the phrase "groggy melon head," I can't say this improves my understanding of the author's point. But, hey, at least one person in China has read it...
  • I got an author copy of the UK edition last night in the mail, and it looks very nice. It's also apparently selling briskly in WH Smith's stores in the UK, as mentioned in this publishing blog, which also says nice things about the concept. The numbers there are a little off (based on what the publisher told me), but not too inflated, which is a kick. That's without any publicity activity from me, either, though if anybody wants to buy me a plane ticket to the UK to promote the book, I'm open to the idea...

And that's about all I have for today. Sean Carroll is visiting Union today, giving a physics colloquium shortly, and a public lecture tonight, which should be fun.

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I haven't been as relentless about flogging How to Teach Physics to Your Dog (now available in paperback!) as I was last year, because it gets kind of exhausting. I do have a vanity search set up on Google Reader that points me to the occasional review-- this one, for example, so I still see the…
The vanity search this morning turned up something I hadn't seen before: That's the Japanese edition of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. I knew one was in the works, but hadn't heard when it would be out. Of course, I can't read any of it other than my own name (rightmost column of the cover text…
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Between my long-ago high-school French and Google Translate, I can tell that this is a good review of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. It does note, though, that reading the book requires knowledge of English to understand it, which is a problem. And, as far as I know, French translation rights…

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The reviewer was describing how he felt some of the concepts were beyond his grasp (groggy melon head), but he managed to learn the basic ideas after reading the book a few times. He says that the last chapter is worthy food for thought.