Breakfast with Einstein: The Exotic Physics of Everyday Objects

A Sunday Times Book of the Year


From the author of the international bestseller How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog


Exciting physics doesn't just show up in billion-dollar experiments like the Large Hadron Collider or in extreme astrophysical environments like black holes. It's to be found all around us, just beneath the surface of our normal everyday lives.


An ordinary morning routine depends on some of the weirdest phenomena ever discovered. Did you know for instance that even the humble alarm clock holds secrets about quantum mechanics or that classical physics couldn't explain why your toaster's heating element glows orange? Or that the sensor your phone uses to take pictures of your kids or cats is, at a fundamental level, quantum mechanical, relying as it does on the particle nature of light?


In Breakfast with Einstein, Chad Orzel elevates the everyday by showing the wonder and amazement that can be found in even the simplest activities. Quantum physics is one of the great intellectual triumphs of human civilisation, and it's all around us, everyday - if you just know where to look.