The Artful Universe Expanded

ISBN-13: 9780199601332 / Angielski / Miękka / 2011 / 336 str.

John Barrow

Opis

Our love of art, writes John Barrow, is the end product of millions of years of evolution. How we react to a beautiful painting or symphony draws upon instincts laid down long before humans existed. Now, in this enhanced edition of the highly popular The Artful Universe, Barrow further explores the close ties between our aesthetic appreciation and the basic nature of the Universe.
Barrow argues that the laws of the Universe have imprinted themselves upon our thoughts and actions in subtle and unexpected ways. Why do we like certain types of art or music? What games and puzzles do we find challenging? Why do so many myths and legends have common elements? In this eclectic and entertaining survey, Barrow answers these questions and more as he explains how the landscape of the Universe has influenced the development of philosophy and mythology, and how millions of years of evolutionary history have fashioned our attraction to certain patterns of sound and color. This second edition features eight fascinating new sections covering such topics as the recent discoveries of extrasolar planets, the fashionable postmodernist rejection of science, and the discovery of the underlying mathematical structure of Jackson Pollock's work.
Drawing on a wide variety of examples, from the theological questions raised by St. Augustine and C.S. Lewis to the relationship between the pure math of Pythagoras and the music of the Beatles, The Artful Universe Expanded covers new ground and enters a wide-ranging debate about the meaning and significance of the links between art and science.
"Traverses an enormous range of material, treating the reader to extended riffs on everything from non-Euclidean geometry to Stravinsky's theories on music."
--The New York Times

Recenzje

Barrow is emerging as the Stephen Jay Gould of the mathematical sciences. These fluent and erudite essays should further enhance his reputation. Professor Sir Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal, on Between Inner Space and Outer Space

O autorze

Professor John D. Barrow, FRS, is Professor of Mathematical Sciences and Director of the Millenium Mathematics Project at the University of Cambridge. His principal area of scientific research is cosmology, and he is the author of many highly acclaimed books about the nature and significance of modern developments in physics, astronomy, and mathematics, including The Left Hand of Creation, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, The Infinite Book: a short guide to the boundless, timeless and endless and most recently, 100 Essential Things You Didn't Know: Maths Explains Your World.