
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
This is a book about artāand 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 scienceāthe concept of space, the notion of randomness, the shape of the cosmos, and other puzzles of the universeāwhile 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 DalĆ, 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 LĆ©ger; 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.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Table of Contents
- List of Figures
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Still Life as a Model of Spacetime
- 3. The Notion of Space in Mathematics through the Lens of Modern Art
- 4. Entropy and Art: The View beyond Arnheim
- 5. Structures of Randomness
- 6. Plentiful Nothingness: The Void in Modern Art and Modern Science
- 7. The Geometry and Physics of Numbers
- 8. Matter and Forces
- 9. Can You Hear the Shape of the Cosmos?
- 10. The Train and the Cosmos: Visionary Modernity
- 11. Mathematical Illuminations
- Acknowledgments
- Index