My dog has never shown any particular interest in relativity. Orzel, an atomic physicist, apparently has a more high-minded canine companion. The book is a clever introduction to the often intimidating concepts of special and general relativity, couched as a series of conversations between the author and his dog, Emmy.

It may sound like a strange setup, but the somewhat kooky concept works well for explaining a field of physics that can sound, well, kooky to the uninitiated. Emmy is the stand-in for the everyman (or everydog) who has never quite managed to grasp the idea of spacetime, or why moving clocks tick slower than stationary ones. The imagined back-and-forth banter between author and dog keeps the book engaging while Orzel lays out the theoretical framework of particle physics, explains why neither dogs nor neutrinos can move faster than light and describes what happens to cats that get sucked into black holes.

Relativity has a rich history, and while Einstein (rightly) gets the credit, it took the work of many mathematicians and physicists to make the theory possible. Orzel gives a number of them their due, especially Albert Michelson and Edward Morley, whose experiments starting in the 1880s gave credence to the idea that light moves at a constant velocity, no matter how fast an observer is moving.

While keeping the math to a minimum, Orzel provides a clear and thorough primer. It might take some practice to start equating subatomic particles to running bunnies, but the reader will find that puzzling through the details is worth the effort. 

Basic Books, 2012, 316 p., $16.99

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