Chad Orzel

Chad was born and raised in central New York state, near Binghamton. After attending Williams College, he spent two years as a post-doctoral researcher at Yale University, studying quantum mechanical effects in Bose-Einstein condensates.^[5][6][7] He received his Ph.D. in chemical physics studying laser cooling at the National Institute of Standards and Technology^[8] from the University of Maryland, College Park under Nobel Laureate William Daniel Phillips. He is an associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Union College in Schenectady, NY where he specializes in atomic, molecular, and optical physics. Chad maintained a blog at Uncertain Principles and has made web based presentations including a number of TED ED Talks. He was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2021.^[9]

In addition to teaching and doing research at Union, he maintained the physics-oriented blog Uncertain Principles as part of the ScienceBlogs project.^[10] (He now blogs at his own site.) He published his first book, How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog (also called How to Teach Physics to Your Dog) in 2009. The book and its sequel How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog explain scientific concepts using a fictionalized version of Orzel's dog as an audience surrogate. The writing of Orzel comes from his passion for science and as responsibility as a scientist as referenced in Physics Central where he talks about his path to writing. "Along the way, Orzel became passionate not only about doing physics research but also about sharing his excitement about science with the public. In fact, Orzel views telling the world about the results of his experiments as one of the primary responsibilities of a scientist."^[11] His latest publication out in 2018 "Breakfast with Einstein. (The Exotic Physics of everyday Objects)^[12]" takes a walk through a typical life and looks at all the physics that is going on around us. He is currently working on another book entitled "A Brief History of Timekeeping".^[13]

He lives in Niskayuna, New York with his wife, Kate Nepveu, their two children. Emmy, the dog which was the sound board of exploring physics in his popular books "How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog" and "How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog" has passed away but he introduces a new addition to the family by way of his blog in an entry entitled "Meet Charlie", another rescue dog.^[14]

• How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog (Scribner, 2009) ISBN 9781416572299
• How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog (Basic Books, 2012) ISBN 978-0465023318
• Eureka! Discovering Your Inner Scientist (Basic Books, 2014) ISBN 9788434422315
• Breakfast with Einstein: The Exotic Physics of Everyday Objects (BenBella Books, 2018) ISBN 9781946885357
• "Scientific Failure as a Public Good: Illustrating the Process of Science and Its Contrast with Pseudoscience" (doi:10.7551/mitpress/9780262037426.001.0001) in Pseudoscience: The Conspiracy Against Science, edited by Allison B. Kaufman and James C. Kaufman (MIT Press, 2018) ISBN 9780262037426
• A Brief History of Timekeeping (BenBella Books, 2022) ISBN 9781953295606

• Union College web page
• Blog, Uncertain Principles
• TED Ed Talks Particles and waves: The central mystery of quantum mechanics,What is the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle?,Schrödinger's cat: A thought experiment in quantum mechanics,Einstein's brilliant mistake: Entangled states
• Forbes.com
• ScienceBlogs.com
• ChadOrzel.com