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Customer Review
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 27, 2012
I've read Why Does E=MC2 by Brian Cox, Fabric of the Cosmos and The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene, Einstein's Cosmos by Michio Kaku, but this is by far the best book on relativity that I've read. Brian Greene's books were amazing, but didn't focus entirely on special and general relativity, Einstein's Cosmos was an excellent book but was a little more biographical than I was hoping it would be, and Brian Cox's book was very good. This book however is just simply amazing.
The explanations are extremely clear and I'm just amazed at how much he was able to cover in just a couple hundred pages. It never seemed like the book was moving too fast or too slow. The dog conversation idea sounded like it would be annoying and corny, but it was perfect. The dog could have been replaced with a human, a rabbit, or a cat (which were all animals he used along with his dog in the book). The reason it worked so great is that he clearly anticipated the exact questions that people ranging from total layman who never read a science book in their life to geeks like myself who try and read every science book they can get their hands on would have when it comes to relativity.
I'm at the point know where I could answer some of the most basic questions that his dog has, but I remember a time when I couldn't and when the questions the dog asks would've been exactly the questions that I would have had. Pretty much every time a statement by the author left me slightly confused or uncertain his dog would stop him in his tracks and ask either the question that I was thinking or a different question that either way would lead to the answer that I needed. I wish that all science authors, whether their books in dominated by dialogue or not would be as focused as Chad Orzel when it comes to anticipating questions that readers might have. I don't think writing the book as a series of 'conversations with his dog' was the reason that this book is successful; I think it is the fact that the author was able to anticipate and answer clearly questions that readers might stumble upon, and using his dog was an excellent way to not only answer important questions that could cause readers to stumble, but also because the dog's interruptions highlighting important points that often can be confusing or just need to be addressed to develop a clearer understanding.
This book will blow your mind!!!!!
I haven't read the author's first book, which is about quantum mechanics, and I am definitely going to start reading it as soon as I post this review!
The explanations are extremely clear and I'm just amazed at how much he was able to cover in just a couple hundred pages. It never seemed like the book was moving too fast or too slow. The dog conversation idea sounded like it would be annoying and corny, but it was perfect. The dog could have been replaced with a human, a rabbit, or a cat (which were all animals he used along with his dog in the book). The reason it worked so great is that he clearly anticipated the exact questions that people ranging from total layman who never read a science book in their life to geeks like myself who try and read every science book they can get their hands on would have when it comes to relativity.
I'm at the point know where I could answer some of the most basic questions that his dog has, but I remember a time when I couldn't and when the questions the dog asks would've been exactly the questions that I would have had. Pretty much every time a statement by the author left me slightly confused or uncertain his dog would stop him in his tracks and ask either the question that I was thinking or a different question that either way would lead to the answer that I needed. I wish that all science authors, whether their books in dominated by dialogue or not would be as focused as Chad Orzel when it comes to anticipating questions that readers might have. I don't think writing the book as a series of 'conversations with his dog' was the reason that this book is successful; I think it is the fact that the author was able to anticipate and answer clearly questions that readers might stumble upon, and using his dog was an excellent way to not only answer important questions that could cause readers to stumble, but also because the dog's interruptions highlighting important points that often can be confusing or just need to be addressed to develop a clearer understanding.
This book will blow your mind!!!!!
I haven't read the author's first book, which is about quantum mechanics, and I am definitely going to start reading it as soon as I post this review!
