The Dual Muse

The Dual Muse PDF Author: Lorin Cuoco
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9789027221698
Category : Art and literature
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
For centuries an artist adept in one medium has found solace, encouragement, and inspiration in another, even to the point of merging them. Michelangelo put down his chisel to pick up his pen; Blake pictorialized his poetry; Max Ernst collaged narratives; Gertrude Stein adopted a cubist style. This bicameral interplay of the verbal and pictorial has never been more pronounced than in our own time. "The Dual Muse" explores a range of creative interrelationships between the visual arts and literary media in works by selected modern and contemporary artists and authors.

History of the Universe

History of the Universe PDF Author: Jennifer Bartlett
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description


The Dual Muse

The Dual Muse PDF Author: Lorin Cuoco
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9789027221698
Category : Art and literature
Languages : en
Pages : 156

Get Book Here

Book Description
For centuries an artist adept in one medium has found solace, encouragement, and inspiration in another, even to the point of merging them. Michelangelo put down his chisel to pick up his pen; Blake pictorialized his poetry; Max Ernst collaged narratives; Gertrude Stein adopted a cubist style. This bicameral interplay of the verbal and pictorial has never been more pronounced than in our own time. "The Dual Muse" explores a range of creative interrelationships between the visual arts and literary media in works by selected modern and contemporary artists and authors.

The Number of the Heavens

The Number of the Heavens PDF Author: Tom Siegfried
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 067497588X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
The award-winning former editor of Science News shows that one of the most fascinating and controversial ideas in contemporary cosmology—the existence of multiple parallel universes—has a long and divisive history that continues to this day. We often consider the universe to encompass everything that exists, but some scientists have come to believe that the vast, expanding universe we inhabit may be just one of many. The totality of those parallel universes, still for some the stuff of science fiction, has come to be known as the multiverse. The concept of the multiverse, exotic as it may be, isn’t actually new. In The Number of the Heavens, veteran science journalist Tom Siegfried traces the history of this controversial idea from antiquity to the present. Ancient Greek philosophers first raised the possibility of multiple universes, but Aristotle insisted on one and only one cosmos. Then in 1277 the bishop of Paris declared it heresy to teach that God could not create as many universes as he pleased, unleashing fervent philosophical debate about whether there might exist a “plurality of worlds.” As the Middle Ages gave way to the Renaissance, the philosophical debates became more scientific. René Descartes declared “the number of the heavens” to be indefinitely large, and as notions of the known universe expanded from our solar system to our galaxy, the debate about its multiplicity was repeatedly recast. In the 1980s, new theories about the big bang reignited interest in the multiverse. Today the controversy continues, as cosmologists and physicists explore the possibility of many big bangs, extra dimensions of space, and a set of branching, parallel universes. This engrossing story offers deep lessons about the nature of science and the quest to understand the universe.

Universe in Creation

Universe in Creation PDF Author: Roy R. Gould
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674985044
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
“In a unique take on the cosmos, Gould makes the case that the emergence of a great many things are not only pre-ordained, but predictable.” (Forbes) We know the universe has a history, but does it also have a story of self-creation to tell? Yes, in Roy R. Gould’s account. He offers a compelling narrative of how the universe?with no instruction other than its own laws?evolved into billions of galaxies and gave rise to life. Far from being a random accident, the universe is hard at work, extracting order from chaos. Making use of the best current science, Gould turns what many assume to be true about the universe on its head. The cosmos expands inward, not outward. Gravity can drive things apart, not merely together. And the universe seems to defy entropy as it becomes more ordered, rather than the other way around. Strangest of all, the universe is exquisitely hospitable to life, despite its being constructed from undistinguished atoms and a few unexceptional rules of behavior. Universe in Creation explores whether the emergence of life, rather than being a mere cosmic afterthought, may be written into the most basic laws of nature. “A must-have for all avid popular science fans.” —Astronomy Now “Gould . . . proposes a fascinating thesis about life’s emergence in this eloquent debut” —Publishers Weekly “A joyous romp through a cosmos full of wonders.” —Roald Hoffmann, Nobel Laureate and author of Beyond the Finite “Exciting, original, and extremely well written.” —Avi Loeb, Harvard University, New York Times bestselling author of Extraterrestrial “Fascinating. . . . Gould artfully describes various . . . highlights in universal history, like the formation of stars and planets. Many of these moments are majestic.” —New Republic

The Intellectual Sword

The Intellectual Sword PDF Author: Bruce A. Kimball
Publisher: Belknap Press
ISBN: 0674737326
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 881

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Book Description
A history of Harvard Law School in the twentieth century, focusing on the school’s precipitous decline prior to 1945 and its dramatic postwar resurgence amid national crises and internal discord. By the late nineteenth century, Harvard Law School had transformed legal education and become the preeminent professional school in the nation. But in the early 1900s, HLS came to the brink of financial failure and lagged its peers in scholarly innovation. It also honed an aggressive intellectual culture famously described by Learned Hand: “In the universe of truth, they lived by the sword. They asked no quarter of absolutes, and they gave none.” After World War II, however, HLS roared back. In this magisterial study, Bruce Kimball and Daniel Coquillette chronicle the school’s near collapse and dramatic resurgence across the twentieth century. The school’s struggles resulted in part from a debilitating cycle of tuition dependence, which deepened through the 1940s, as well as the suicides of two deans and the dalliance of another with the Nazi regime. HLS stubbornly resisted the admission of women, Jews, and African Americans, and fell behind the trend toward legal realism. But in the postwar years, under Dean Erwin Griswold, the school’s resurgence began, and Harvard Law would produce such major political and legal figures as Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Elena Kagan, and President Barack Obama. Even so, the school faced severe crises arising from the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, Critical Legal Studies, and its failure to enroll and retain people of color and women, including Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Based on hitherto unavailable sources—including oral histories, personal letters, diaries, and financial records—The Intellectual Sword paints a compelling portrait of the law school widely considered the most influential in the world.

The Elephant in the Universe

The Elephant in the Universe PDF Author: Govert Schilling
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674248996
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 377

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Book Description
An award-winning science journalist details the quest to isolate and understand dark matter--and shows how that search has helped us to understand the universe we inhabit. When you train a telescope on outer space, you can see luminous galaxies, nebulae, stars, and planets. But if you add all that together, it constitutes only 15 percent of the matter in the universe. Despite decades of research, the nature of the remaining 85 percent is unknown. We call it dark matter. In The Elephant in the Universe, Govert Schilling explores the fascinating history of the search for dark matter. Evidence for its existence comes from a wealth of astronomical observations. Theories and computer simulations of the evolution of the universe are also suggestive: they can be reconciled with astronomical measurements only if dark matter is a dominant component of nature. Physicists have devised huge, sensitive instruments to search for dark matter, which may be unlike anything else in the cosmos--some unknown elementary particle. Yet so far dark matter has escaped every experiment. Indeed, dark matter is so elusive that some scientists are beginning to suspect there might be something wrong with our theories about gravity or with the current paradigms of cosmology. Schilling interviews both believers and heretics and paints a colorful picture of the history and current status of dark matter research, with astronomers and physicists alike trying to make sense of theory and observation. Taking a holistic view of dark matter as a problem, an opportunity, and an example of science in action, The Elephant in the Universe is a vivid tale of scientists puzzling their way toward the true nature of the universe.

God’s Universe

God’s Universe PDF Author: Owen Gingerich
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674023703
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
Taking Johannes Kepler as his guide, Gingerich argues that an individual can be both a creative scientist and a believer in divine design--that indeed the very motivation for scientific research can derive from a desire to trace God's handiwork.

Beamtimes and Lifetimes

Beamtimes and Lifetimes PDF Author: Sharon Traweek
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674044444
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 205

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Book Description
Looks at the life of particle physicists, showing who these people are and what their world is really like. Traweek shows their similarities and differences, how their careers are shaped, how they interact with their colleagues and how their ideas about time and space shape their social structure.

What Stars Are Made Of

What Stars Are Made Of PDF Author: Donovan Moore
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674237374
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
A New Scientist Book of the Year A Physics Today Book of the Year A Science News Book of the Year The history of science is replete with women getting little notice for their groundbreaking discoveries. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, a tireless innovator who correctly theorized the substance of stars, was one of them. It was not easy being a woman of ambition in early twentieth-century England, much less one who wished to be a scientist. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin overcame prodigious obstacles to become a woman of many firsts: the first to receive a PhD in astronomy from Radcliffe College, the first promoted to full professor at Harvard, the first to head a department there. And, in what has been called “the most brilliant PhD thesis ever written in astronomy,” she was the first to describe what stars are made of. Payne-Gaposchkin lived in a society that did not know what to make of a determined schoolgirl who wanted to know everything. She was derided in college and refused a degree. As a graduate student, she faced formidable skepticism. Revolutionary ideas rarely enjoy instantaneous acceptance, but the learned men of the astronomical community found hers especially hard to take seriously. Though welcomed at the Harvard College Observatory, she worked for years without recognition or status. Still, she accomplished what every scientist yearns for: discovery. She revealed the atomic composition of stars—only to be told that her conclusions were wrong by the very man who would later show her to be correct. In What Stars Are Made Of, Donovan Moore brings this remarkable woman to life through extensive archival research, family interviews, and photographs. Moore retraces Payne-Gaposchkin’s steps with visits to cramped observatories and nighttime bicycle rides through the streets of Cambridge, England. The result is a story of devotion and tenacity that speaks powerfully to our own time.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Jonathan Livingston Seagull PDF Author: Richard Bach
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 147679331X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
"Includes the rediscovered part four"--Cover.