Deconstructing Cosmology

Deconstructing Cosmology PDF

Author: Robert H. Sanders

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2016-09-29

Total Pages: 153

ISBN-13: 1107155266

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A critical assessment of the standard cosmological model and its main challenger, modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND).

Deconstructing Cosmology

Deconstructing Cosmology PDF

Author: Robert H. Sanders

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2016-09-29

Total Pages: 153

ISBN-13: 1316943232

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The advent of sensitive high-resolution observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation and their successful interpretation in terms of the standard cosmological model has led to great confidence in this model's reality. The prevailing attitude is that we now understand the Universe and need only work out the details. In this book, Sanders traces the development and successes of Lambda-CDM, and argues that this triumphalism may be premature. The model's two major components, dark energy and dark matter, have the character of the pre-twentieth-century luminiferous aether. While there is astronomical evidence for these hypothetical fluids, their enigmatic properties call into question our assumptions of the universality of locally determined physical law. Sanders explains how modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND) is a significant challenge for cold dark matter. Overall, the message is hopeful: the field of cosmology has not become frozen, and there is much fundamental work ahead for tomorrow's cosmologists.

Lumen Naturae

Lumen Naturae PDF

Author: Matilde Marcolli

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2020-05-26

Total Pages: 390

ISBN-13: 0262043904

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Exploring common themes in modern art, mathematics, and science, including the concept of space, the notion of randomness, and the shape of the cosmos. This is a book about art—and a book about mathematics and physics. In Lumen Naturae (the title refers to a purely immanent, non-supernatural form of enlightenment), mathematical physicist Matilde Marcolli explores common themes in modern art and modern science—the concept of space, the notion of randomness, the shape of the cosmos, and other puzzles of the universe—while mapping convergences with the work of such artists as Paul Cezanne, Mark Rothko, Sol LeWitt, and Lee Krasner. Her account, focusing on questions she has investigated in her own scientific work, is illustrated by more than two hundred color images of artworks by modern and contemporary artists. Thus Marcolli finds in still life paintings broad and deep philosophical reflections on space and time, and connects notions of space in mathematics to works by Paul Klee, Salvador Dalí, and others. She considers the relation of entropy and art and how notions of entropy have been expressed by such artists as Hans Arp and Fernand Léger; and traces the evolution of randomness as a mode of artistic expression. She analyzes the relation between graphical illustration and scientific text, and offers her own watercolor-decorated mathematical notebooks. Throughout, she balances discussions of science with explorations of art, using one to inform the other. (She employs some formal notation, which can easily be skipped by general readers.) Marcolli is not simply explaining art to scientists and science to artists; she charts unexpected interdependencies that illuminate the universe.

Cosmology and Character

Cosmology and Character PDF

Author: Naoto Kamano

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2014-12-02

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 3110870703

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In this rhetorical-critical study of Ecclesiates, the author elucidates how Qoheleth teaches in his discourse, paying particular attention to the use of the cosmological texts (1:4-11 and 3:1-8) and the first-person speeches.

The Cosmic Web

The Cosmic Web PDF

Author: N. Katherine Hayles

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 1984

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 9780801492907

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From the central concept of the field--which depicts the world as a mutually interactive whole, with each part connected to every other part by an underlying field-- have come models as diverse as quantum mathematics and Saussure's theory of language. In The Cosmic Web, N. Katherine Hayles seeks to establish the scope of the field concept and to assess its importance for contemporary thought. She then explores the literary strategies that are attributable directly or indirectly to the new paradigm; among the texts at which she looks closely are Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Nabokov's Ada, D. H. Lawrence's early novels and essays, Borges's fiction, and Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow.

Emerging Cosmology

Emerging Cosmology PDF

Author: Bernard Lovell

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 1981

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 1583481133

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Cosmology—the science that aims at a comprehensive theory of creation, evolution, and present structure of the entire physical universe—is the subject of this compelling book by one of the world’s preeminent astronomers. Written especially for the general reader, Emerging Cosmology traces the history of what is perhaps the first science from the earliest surviving evidence of cosmological thought, circa 3,000 B.C.E., to the present. Robert Jastrow calls Emerging Cosmology "an eminently readable and absorbing account of the greatest revolution in human thought since the dawn of time—growing awareness that space is vast and the world of man is small. Lovell tells the story with a rare grace and insight that reveal the touch of a master on science for the layman."

The Fabric of the Cosmos

The Fabric of the Cosmos PDF

Author: Brian Greene

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2007-12-18

Total Pages: 594

ISBN-13: 0307428532

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NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From one of the world’s leading physicists and author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Elegant Universe, comes “an astonishing ride” through the universe (The New York Times) that makes us look at reality in a completely different way. Space and time form the very fabric of the cosmos. Yet they remain among the most mysterious of concepts. Is space an entity? Why does time have a direction? Could the universe exist without space and time? Can we travel to the past? Greene has set himself a daunting task: to explain non-intuitive, mathematical concepts like String Theory, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and Inflationary Cosmology with analogies drawn from common experience. From Newton’s unchanging realm in which space and time are absolute, to Einstein’s fluid conception of spacetime, to quantum mechanics’ entangled arena where vastly distant objects can instantaneously coordinate their behavior, Greene takes us all, regardless of our scientific backgrounds, on an irresistible and revelatory journey to the new layers of reality that modern physics has discovered lying just beneath the surface of our everyday world.

Deconstructing Contemporary Chinese Art

Deconstructing Contemporary Chinese Art PDF

Author: Paul Gladston

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-08-21

Total Pages: 195

ISBN-13: 3662464888

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The book presents a range of articles and discussions that offer critical insights into the development of contemporary Chinese art, both within China and internationally. It brings together selected writings, both published and unpublished, by Paul Gladston, one of the foremost international scholars on contemporary Chinese art. The articles are based on extensive first-hand research, much of which was carried out during an extended residence in China between 2005 and 2010. In contrast to many other writers on contemporary Chinese art, Gladston analyses his subject with specific reference to the concerns of critical theory. In his writings he consistently argues for a “polylogic” (multi-voiced) approach to research and analysis grounded in painstaking attention to local, regional and international conditions of artistic production, reception and display.

Deconstructing the American Mosque

Deconstructing the American Mosque PDF

Author: Akel Ismail Kahera

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2010-01-01

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 0292779755

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From the avant-garde design of the Islamic Cultural Center in New York City to the simplicity of the Dar al-Islam Mosque in Abiquiu, New Mexico, the American mosque takes many forms of visual and architectural expression. The absence of a single, authoritative model and the plurality of design nuances reflect the heterogeneity of the American Muslim community itself, which embodies a whole spectrum of ethnic origins, traditions, and religious practices. In this book, Akel Ismail Kahera explores the history and theory of Muslim religious aesthetics in the United States since 1950. Using a notion of deconstruction based on the concepts of "jamal" (beauty), "subject," and "object" found in the writings of Ibn Arabi (d. 1240), he interprets the forms and meanings of several American mosques from across the country. His analysis contributes to three debates within the formulation of a Muslim aesthetics in North America—first, over the meaning, purpose, and function of visual religious expression; second, over the spatial and visual affinities between American and non-American mosques, including the Prophet's mosque at Madinah, Arabia; and third, over the relevance of culture, place, and identity to the making of contemporary religious expression in North America.