EBOOK Artful Universe Expanded

In The Artful Universe (OUP, 1995) John D. Barrow explored the close ties between        our aesthetic appreciation and the basic nature of the Universe, challenging the        commonly held view that our sense of beauty is entirely free and unfettered. It        looked at some of the unexpected ways in which the structure of the Universe, its        laws, its environments, and above all its underlying mathematical structure imprints        itself on our thoughts, our aesthetic preferences, and our viewsabout the nature of        things. The exploration embraced topics such as perspective; the size of things and        the origins of aesthetics; computer art (posing the question: is it art?); and the        origins of our susceptibility to music. Life sales of the hardback totalled just        over 25,000 copies.The study of the evolutionary and mathematical underpinnings of        our aesthetic sense, and our understanding of the nature and scale of the universe        has grown over the past decade, with developments in evolutionary psychology, and in        cosmology. This paperback of the revised edition (OUP, 2005) contains eight new        sections covering the recent discoveries of extrasolar planets, fashionable        postmodernist rejection of science as uncovering objective reality, growing        understanding of key ratiosappearing in biological relationships, and studies of the        underlying mathematical structure of a Pollock painting.