Download or read book The Jazz of Physics written by Stephon Alexander and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2016-04-26 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A spectacular musical and scientific journey from the Bronx to the cosmic horizon that reveals the astonishing links between jazz, science, Einstein, and Coltrane More than fifty years ago, John Coltrane drew the twelve musical notes in a circle and connected them by straight lines, forming a five-pointed star. Inspired by Einstein, Coltrane put physics and geometry at the core of his music. Physicist and jazz musician Stephon Alexander follows suit, using jazz to answer physics' most vexing questions about the past and future of the universe. Following the great minds that first drew the links between music and physics-a list including Pythagoras, Kepler, Newton, Einstein, and Rakim — The Jazz of Physics reveals that the ancient poetic idea of the "Music of the Spheres," taken seriously, clarifies confounding issues in physics. The Jazz of Physics will fascinate and inspire anyone interested in the mysteries of our universe, music, and life itself.

Download or read book Fear of a Black Universe written by Stephon Alexander and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2021-08-31 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The rabbit hole gets wrestled here. An old school saying applies: the more you know, the more you don’t know. Dance along this read into the unknown and find out that this book may be the best ever answer to ‘What is soul?'" —Chuck D, rapper and co-founder of Public Enemy *Starred Reviews* from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly! Named a Best Book of 2021 by Library Journal, Kirkus, and symmetry Magazine In this important guide to science and society, a cosmologist argues that physics must embrace the excluded, listen to the unheard, and be unafraid of being wrong. Years ago, cosmologist Stephon Alexander received life-changing advice: to discover real physics, he needed to stop memorizing and start taking risks. In Fear of a Black Universe, Alexander shows that great physics requires us to think outside the mainstream -- to improvise and rely on intuition. His approach leads him to three principles that shape all theories of the universe: the principle of invariance, the quantum principle, and the principle of emergence. Alexander uses them to explore some of physics' greatest mysteries, from what happened before the big bang to how the universe makes consciousness possible. Drawing on his experience as a Black physicist, he makes a powerful case for diversifying our scientific communities. Compelling and empowering, Fear of a Black Universe offers remarkable insight into the art of physics.

Download or read book An Infinity of Worlds written by Will Kinney and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2023-10-03 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What happened before the primordial fire of the Big Bang: a theory about the ultimate origin of the universe. In the beginning was the Big Bang: an unimaginably hot fire almost fourteen billion years ago in which the first elements were forged. The physical theory of the hot nascent universe—the Big Bang—was one of the most consequential developments in twentieth-century science. And yet it leaves many questions unanswered: Why is the universe so big? Why is it so old? What is the origin of structure in the cosmos? In An Infinity of Worlds, physicist Will Kinney explains a more recent theory that may hold the answers to these questions and even explain the ultimate origins of the universe: cosmic inflation, before the primordial fire of the Big Bang. Kinney argues that cosmic inflation is a transformational idea in cosmology, changing our picture of the basic structure of the cosmos and raising unavoidable questions about what we mean by a scientific theory. He explains that inflation is a remarkable unification of inner space and outer space, in which the physics of the very large (the cosmos) meets the physics of the very small (elementary particles and fields), closing in a full circle at the first moment of time. With quantum uncertainty its fundamental feature, this new picture of cosmic origins introduces the possibility that the origin of the universe was of a quantum nature. Kinney considers the consequences of eternal cosmic inflation. Can we come to terms with the possibility that our entire observable universe is one of infinitely many, forever hidden from our view?

Download or read book The Hungry Brain written by Stephan J. Guyenet, Ph.D. and published by Flatiron Books. This book was released on 2017-02-07 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year From an obesity and neuroscience researcher with a knack for engaging, humorous storytelling, The Hungry Brain uses cutting-edge science to answer the questions: why do we overeat, and what can we do about it? No one wants to overeat. And certainly no one wants to overeat for years, become overweight, and end up with a high risk of diabetes or heart disease--yet two thirds of Americans do precisely that. Even though we know better, we often eat too much. Why does our behavior betray our own intentions to be lean and healthy? The problem, argues obesity and neuroscience researcher Stephan J. Guyenet, is not necessarily a lack of willpower or an incorrect understanding of what to eat. Rather, our appetites and food choices are led astray by ancient, instinctive brain circuits that play by the rules of a survival game that no longer exists. And these circuits don’t care about how you look in a bathing suit next summer. To make the case, The Hungry Brain takes readers on an eye-opening journey through cutting-edge neuroscience that has never before been available to a general audience. The Hungry Brain delivers profound insights into why the brain undermines our weight goals and transforms these insights into practical guidelines for eating well and staying slim. Along the way, it explores how the human brain works, revealing how this mysterious organ makes us who we are.

Download or read book Special Relativity and Classical Field Theory written by Leonard Susskind and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2017-09-26 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The third volume in the bestselling physics series cracks open Einstein's special relativity and field theory Physicist Leonard Susskind and data engineer Art Friedman are back. This time, they introduce readers to Einstein's special relativity and Maxwell's classical field theory. Using their typical brand of real math, enlightening drawings, and humor, Susskind and Friedman walk us through the complexities of waves, forces, and particles by exploring special relativity and electromagnetism. It's a must-read for both devotees of the series and any armchair physicist who wants to improve their knowledge of physics' deepest truths.

Download or read book Before the Big Bang written by Laura Mersini-Houghton and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2022-07-19 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A riveting tour of the cosmos from one of the brightest minds in astrophysics." —The Washington Post A revolutionary new account of our universe’s creation—and a breathtaking exploration of the landscape from which we sprang—from one of the world’s most celebrated cosmologists What came before the Big Bang, and what exists outside of the universe it created? Until recently, scientists could only guess at what lay past the edge of space-time. However, as pioneering theoretical physicist Laura Mersini-Houghton explains, new scientific tools are now giving us the ability to peer beyond the limits of our universe and to test our theories about what is there. And what we are finding is upending everything we thought we knew about the cosmos and our place in it. Mersini-Houghton is no stranger to boundaries—or to pushing through them. As a child growing up in Communist Albania, she discovered a universe beyond her walled-off world through the study of math and science, and through music. As a female cosmologist in a male-dominated field, she transcended the limits that society and her profession tried to place on her. And as a trailblazing researcher, she helped to revolutionize the study of our universe by revealing that, far from living in a cosmic Albania, with a world that ends at its borders, we are part of a larger family of universes—a multiverse—that holds wonders we are only beginning to unlock. Mersini-Houghton’s groundbreaking research suggests that we sit in a quantum landscape whose peaks and valleys hide a multitude of other universes, and even hold the secret to the origins of existence itself. Recent evidence has revealed the signatures of such sibling universes in our own night sky, confirming Mersini-Houghton’s theoretical work and offering humbling evidence that our universe is just one member of an unending cosmic family. The incredible scientific saga of one woman’s mind-expanding journey through the multiverse, Before the Big Bang will reshape our understanding of humanity’s place in the unfathomable vastness of the cosmos.

Download or read book The Berklee Book of Jazz Harmony written by Joe Mulholland and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2013-08-01 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Berklee Guide). Learn jazz harmony, as taught at Berklee College of Music. This text provides a strong foundation in harmonic principles, supporting further study in jazz composition, arranging, and improvisation. It covers basic chord types and their tensions, with practical demonstrations of how they are used in characteristic jazz contexts and an accompanying recording that lets you hear how they can be applied.

Download or read book Repository of Scales and Melodic Patterns written by Yusef Lateef and published by . This book was released on with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Against the Day written by Thomas Pynchon and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-06-13 with total page 1541 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[Pynchon's] funniest and arguably his most accessible novel.” —The New York Times Book Review “Raunchy, funny, digressive, brilliant.” —USA Today “Rich and sweeping, wild and thrilling.” —The Boston Globe Spanning the era between the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and the years just after World War I, and constantly moving between locations across the globe (and to a few places not strictly speaking on the map at all), Against the Day unfolds with a phantasmagoria of characters that includes anarchists, balloonists, drug enthusiasts, mathematicians, mad scientists, shamans, spies, and hired guns. As an era of uncertainty comes crashing down around their ears and an unpredictable future commences, these folks are mostly just trying to pursue their lives. Sometimes they manage to catch up; sometimes it's their lives that pursue them.

Download or read book Losing the Nobel Prize A Story of Cosmology Ambition and the Perils of Science s Highest Honor written by Brian Keating and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2018-04-24 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Riveting."—Science A Forbes, Physics Today, Science News, and Science Friday Best Science Book Of 2018 Cosmologist and inventor of the BICEP (Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization) experiment, Brian Keating tells the inside story of the mesmerizing quest to unlock cosmology’s biggest mysteries and the human drama that ensued. We follow along on a personal journey of revelation and discovery in the publish-or-perish world of modern science, and learn that the Nobel Prize might hamper—rather than advance—scientific progress. Fortunately, Keating offers practical solutions for reform, providing a vision of a scientific future in which cosmologists may finally be able to see all the way back to the very beginning.

Download or read book Summary of Stephon Alexander s The Jazz of Physics written by Everest Media, and published by Everest Media LLC. This book was released on 2022-06-10T22:59:00Z with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The exchange of music between the Caribbean and New York City was dynamic at the time, and Trinidadian artists were recording in New York City. My mother’s plans for me to study classical music and become a concert pianist began even before my parents and siblings left Trinidad to stay with her for a few years when I was eight. #2 I was interested in how music worked rather than learning to play others’ compositions. I felt that those moments of contemplation stretched into what felt timeless. I wanted to know more. #3 I had a room in the attic of my home that became my mad scientist lab, where I would experiment with music. I would play the radio stations that were popular with seventh-graders, but one night, I stumbled upon a new station. #4 Music is a physical event, and like most nontrivial physical systems, it has structure. It is defined by tone, meter, rhythm, pitch, melody, and harmony.

Download or read book Galileo written by Mario Livio and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-05-25 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An “intriguing and accessible” (Publishers Weekly) interpretation of the life of Galileo Galilei, one of history’s greatest and most fascinating scientists, that sheds new light on his discoveries and how he was challenged by science deniers. “We really need this story now, because we’re living through the next chapter of science denial” (Bill McKibben). Galileo’s story may be more relevant today than ever before. At present, we face enormous crises—such as minimizing the dangers of climate change—because the science behind these threats is erroneously questioned or ignored. Galileo encountered this problem 400 years ago. His discoveries, based on careful observations and ingenious experiments, contradicted conventional wisdom and the teachings of the church at the time. Consequently, in a blatant assault on freedom of thought, his books were forbidden by church authorities. Astrophysicist and bestselling author Mario Livio draws on his own scientific expertise and uses his “gifts as a great storyteller” (The Washington Post) to provide a “refreshing perspective” (Booklist) into how Galileo reached his bold new conclusions about the cosmos and the laws of nature. A freethinker who followed the evidence wherever it led him, Galileo was one of the most significant figures behind the scientific revolution. He believed that every educated person should know science as well as literature, and insisted on reaching the widest audience possible, publishing his books in Italian rather than Latin. Galileo was put on trial with his life in the balance for refusing to renounce his scientific convictions. He remains a hero and inspiration to scientists and all of those who respect science—which, as Livio reminds us in this “admirably clear and concise” (The Times, London) book, remains threatened everyday.

Download or read book Chronicles of Wasted Time written by Malcolm Muggeridge and published by London : Collins. This book was released on 1972 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This first volume of the autobiography of an inveterate journalist and communicator ends in 1933 when the author was 30.

Download or read book This is Your Brain on Music written by Daniel Levitin and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2019-07-04 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of The Changing Mind and The Organized Mind comes a New York Times bestseller that unravels the mystery of our perennial love affair with music ***** 'What do the music of Bach, Depeche Mode and John Cage fundamentally have in common?' Music is an obsession at the heart of human nature, even more fundamental to our species than language. From Mozart to the Beatles, neuroscientist, psychologist and internationally-bestselling author Daniel Levitin reveals the role of music in human evolution, shows how our musical preferences begin to form even before we are born and explains why music can offer such an emotional experience. In This Is Your Brain On Music Levitin offers nothing less than a new way to understand music, and what it can teach us about ourselves. ***** 'Music seems to have an almost wilful, evasive quality, defying simple explanation, so that the more we find out, the more there is to know . . . Daniel Levitin's book is an eloquent and poetic exploration of this paradox' Sting 'You'll never hear music in the same way again' Classic FM magazine 'Music, Levitin argues, is not a decadent modern diversion but something of fundamental importance to the history of human development' Literary Review

Download or read book A Quantum Life written by Hakeem Oluseyi and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2021-08-12 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this inspiring coming-of-age memoir, a world-renowned astrophysicist emerges from an impoverished childhood and crime-filled adolescence to ascend through the top ranks of research physics. Navigating poverty, violence, and instability, a young James Plummer had two guiding stars-a genius IQ and a love of science. But a bookish nerd was a soft target in his community, where James faced years of bullying and abuse. As he struggled to survive his childhood in some of the country's toughest urban neighborhoods in New Orleans, Houston, and LA, and later in the equally poor backwoods of Mississippi, he adopted the persona of "gangsta nerd"-dealing weed in juke joints while winning state science fairs with computer programs that model Einstein's theory of relativity. Once admitted to the elite physics PhD program at Stanford University, James found himself pulled between the promise of a bright future and a dangerous crack cocaine habit he developed in college. With the encouragement of his mentor and the sole Black professor in the physics department, James confronted his personal demons as well as the entrenched racism and classism of the scientific establishment. When he finally seized his dream of a life in astrophysics, he adopted a new name, Hakeem Muata Oluseyi, to honor his African ancestors. Alternately heartbreaking and hopeful, A QUANTUM LIFE narrates one man's remarkable quest across an ever-expanding universe filled with entanglement and choice.

Download or read book Summary of Stephon Alexander s Fear of a Black Universe written by Everest Media, and published by Everest Media LLC. This book was released on 2022-06-10T22:59:00Z with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The anomalies of dark matter and dark energy are not the only ones shaking the foundations of physics. There are also several other deviations from our accepted theories of physics, which generate speculations that are not seen in experiments. #2 I want to take you with me as I try to answer some of these questions. To do this, I will provide both the necessary background and the conceptual tools needed to understand some of the current physics. #3 I have navigated a career in physics in spite of racial and sociological prejudices, and I continue to share my conjectures, which, at least sometimes, are theoretically fruitful. #4 The expectations of what it means to do good science are often confused with specific theoretical orientations, which means that practitioners in subdisciplines are expected to uphold specific theoretical arguments. This is desirable, but it can also inhibit innovation and progress.

Download or read book Identity Culture and the Science Performance Volume 2 written by Vivian Appler and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-10-05 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume 2 of Identity, Culture, and the Science Performance investigates performances that illuminate the hidden recesses and inscrutable mysteries of the natural and human-made worlds. While the first volume of this series prioritizes public, outward-facing, and activist work at the intersections of art and science, this volume considers performances of localized, concealed, inexplicable, or intimate phenomena, from the closed-door procedures of biomedical trials to the impacts of climate change. Interdisciplinary science dialogues have long been shaped by the cultures and identity communities in which they arise and circulate. The essays, interviews, and creative works included here not only expose the historical and contemporary harms created by exclusive and prejudicial processes in art and science, they also contemplate how a diverse, inclusive body of science performers might help deepen how we “see” the unseen forces of our universe, contribute to novel scientific understandings, and disrupt disciplinary hierarchies long dominated by white men of privilege. This collection expands upon extant scholarship on theatre and science by foregrounding identity as a crucial thematic and representational element within past and present performances of science. Featuring interviews with science-integrative artists such as Lauren Gundersen (The Half-Life of Marie Curie) and Kim TallBear (Native American DNA) as well as creative works by playwrights Chantal Bilodeau and Claudia Barnett, among others, Identity, Culture, and the Science Performance, Volume 2: From the Curious to the Quantum proposes shifts in perspective and procedure necessary to establish and maintain sustainable cultures of science and art.