Nature has secrets, and it is the desire to uncover them that motivates thescientific quest. But what makes these "secrets" secret? Is it that they are beyond human ken? thatthey concern divine matter
The separateness and connection of individuals is perhaps the central question of human life: What, exactly, is my individuality? To what degree is it unique? To what degree can it be shared, and how?
In 1824 a young Norwegian named Niels Henrik Abel proved conclusively that algebraic equations of the fifth order are not solvable in radicals. In this book Peter Pesic shows what an important event t
Nature has secrets, and it is the desire to uncover them that motivates the scientific quest. But what makes these "secrets" secret? Is it that they are beyond human ken? that they concern divine matt
The age-old question "Why is the sky blue?" begins a quest through science, history, and art, from Aristotle and Newton through Goethe and Einstein. Children ask, "Why is the sky blue?" but the questi
The separateness and connection of individuals is perhaps the central question of human life: What, exactly, is my individuality? To what degree is it unique? To what degree can it be shared, and how
Children ask, "Why is the sky blue?" but the question also puzzled Plato, Leonardo, and even Newton, who unlocked so many other secrets. The search for an answer continued for centuries; in 1862 Sir J
Polyphony -- the interweaving of simultaneous sounds -- is a crucial aspect of music that has deep implications for how we understand the mind. In Polyphonic Minds, Peter Pesic examines the history a
In the natural science of ancient Greece, music formed the meeting place betweennumbers and perception; for the next two millennia, Pesic tells us in Music and the Makingof Modern Science, "liberal ed
The unfolding influence of music and sound on the fundamental structure of the biomedical sciences, from ancient times to the present.Beginning in ancient Greece, Peter Pesic writes, music and sound significantly affected the development of the biomedical sciences. Physicians used rhythmical ratios to interpret the pulse, which inspired later efforts to record the pulse in musical notation. After 1700, biology and medicine took a “sonic turn,” viewing the body as a musical instrument, the rhythms and vibrations of which could guide therapeutic insight. In Sounding Bodies, Pesic traces the unfolding influence of music and sound on the fundamental structure of the biomedical sciences. Pesic explains that music and sound provided the life sciences important tools for hearing, understanding, and influencing the rhythms of life. As medicine sought to go beyond the visible manifestations of illness, sound offered ways to access the hidden interiority of body and mind. Sonic interventions
A wide-ranging exploration of how music has influenced science through the ages, from fifteenth-century cosmology to twentieth-century string theory.In the natural science of ancient Greece, music formed the meeting place between numbers and perception; for the next two millennia, Pesic tells us in Music and the Making of Modern Science, “liberal education” connected music with arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy within a fourfold study, the quadrivium. Peter Pesic argues provocatively that music has had a formative effect on the development of modern science―that music has been not just a charming accompaniment to thought but a conceptual force in its own right. Pesic explores a series of episodes in which music influenced science, moments in which prior developments in music arguably affected subsequent aspects of natural science. He describes encounters between harmony and fifteenth-century cosmological controversies, between musical initiatives and irrational numbers, between
A compelling essay on AbelAs proof introduces readers to the passionate mathematician who died before he could enjoy recognition for his accomplishment and his place in mathematical history. (Science
Eight essays trace seminal ideas about the foundations of geometry that led to the development of Einstein's general theory of relativity. This is the only English-language collection of these importa
Long regarded as a masterpiece in content and form, this work defines the concept of surface curvature and presents the important theorem stating that the "Gauss curvature" is invariant under arbitrar
Thisclassic sets forth the fundamentals of thermodynamics clearly and simply enough to be understood by a beginning student, yet with enough subtlety and depth of thought to appeal also to more
Hermann Weyl (1885-1955) was one of the twentieth century's most important mathematicians, as well as a seminal figure in the development of quantum physics and general relativity. He was also an eloq
This original anthology collects 10 of Weyl's less-technical writings that address the broader scope and implications of mathematics. Most have been long unavailable or not previously published in boo
Describes experiments that demonstrate the principal facts relating an electric charge as a quantity capable of being measured, deductions from these facts, and the exhibition of electrical phenomena.
