Emblems of Mind: The Inner Life of Music and Mathematics Contributor(s): Rothstein, Edward (Author) |
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ISBN: 0226729540 ISBN-13: 9780226729541 Publisher: University of Chicago Press OUR PRICE: $20.79 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: May 2006 Annotation: From Kepler and the music of the spheres to Einstein and his violin, wherever we turn music and mathematics seem to bear a strong relationship. Through exploring music and math from the Greeks to the present, the chief music critic for The New York Times seeks to unravel this intriguing mystery. |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Music | History & Criticism - General - Mathematics | History & Philosophy |
Dewey: 780.051 |
LCCN: 2005032822 |
Physical Information: 0.85" H x 6.46" W x 8.92" (0.96 lbs) 284 pages |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: One is a science, the other an art; one useful, the other seemingly decorative, but mathematics and music share common origins in cult and mystery and have been linked throughout history. Emblems of Mind is Edward Rothstein's classic exploration of their profound similarities, a journey into their "inner life." Along the way, Rothstein explains how mathematics makes sense of space, how music tells a story, how theories are constructed, how melody is shaped. He invokes the poetry of Wordsworth, the anthropology of L vi-Strauss, the imagery of Plato, and the philosophy of Kant. Math and music, Rothstein shows, apply comparable methods as they create their abstractions, display similar concerns with ratio and proportion, and depend on metaphors and analogies to create their meanings. Ultimately, Rothstein argues, they reveal the ways in which we come to understand the world. They are images of the mind at work and play; indeed, they are emblems of Mind itself. Jacques Barzun called this book "splendid." Martin Gardner said it was "beautifully written, marvelous and entertaining." It will provoke all serious readers to think in new ways about the grand patterns in art and life. "Lovely, wistful. . . . Rothstein is a wonderful guide to the architecture of musical space, its tensions and relations, its resonances and proportions. . . . His account of what is going on in the music is unfailingly felicitous."--New Yorker "Provocative and exciting. . . . Rothstein writes this book as a foreign correspondent, sending dispatches from a remote and mysterious locale as a guide for the intellectually adventurous. The remarkable fact about his work is not that it is profound, as much of the writing is, but that it is so accessible."--Christian Science Monitor |