Bored during Mass at the cathedral in Pisa, the seventeen-year-old Galileo regarded the chandelier swinging overhead--and remarked, to his great surprise, that the lamp took as many beats to complete an arc when hardly moving as when it was swinging widely. Galileo's Pendulum tells the story of what this observation meant, and of its profound consequences for science and technology. The principle of the pendulum's swing--a property called isochronism--marks a simple yet fundamental system in nature, one that ties the rhythm of time to the very existence of matter in the universe. Roger Newton sets the stage for Galileo's discovery with a look at biorhythms in living organisms and at early calendars and clocks--contrivances of nature and culture that, however adequate in their time, did not meet the precise requirements of seventeenth-century science and navigation. Galileo's Pendulum recounts the history of the newly evolving time pieces--from marine chronometers to atomic clocks--based on the pendulum as well as other mechanisms employing the same physical principles, and explains the Newtonian science underlying their function. The book ranges nimbly from the sciences of sound and light to the astonishing intersection of the pendulum's oscillations and quantum theory, resulting in new insight into the make-up of the material universe. Covering topics from the invention of time zones to Isaac Newton's equations of motion, from Pythagoras' theory of musical harmony to Michael Faraday's field theory and the development of quantum electrodynamics, Galileo's Pendulum is an authoritative and engaging tour through time of the most basic all-pervading system in the world. Table of Contents: Preface Introduction 1. Biological Timekeeping: The Body's Rhythms 2. The Calendar: Different Drummers 3. Early Clocks: Home-Made Beats 4. The Pendulum Clock: The Beat of Nature 5. Successors: Ubiquitous Timekeeping 6. Isaac Newton: The Physics of the Pendulum 7. Sound and Light: Oscillations Everywhere 8. The Quantum: Oscillators Make Particles Notes References Index Reviews of this book: The range of things that measure time, from living creatures to atomic clocks, brackets Newton's intriguing narrative of time's connections, in the middle of which stands Galileo's famous discovery about pendulums...Science buffs will delight in the links Newton makes in this readable tour of how humanity marks time. --Gilbert Taylor, Booklist

Drawing on the theories of Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and others who have written on the history of sexuality and the body, Galileo's Pendulum explores how the emergence of the scientific method in the seventeenth century led to a de-emphasis on the body and sexuality. The first half of the book focuses on the historical modeling of the relation between pleasure and knowledge by examining a history of scientific rationality and its relation to the formation of the modern scientist's subjectivity. Relying on Foucault's history of sexuality, the author hypothesizes that Galileo's pendulum, as an extension of mathematics and the body, must have been sexualized by schemes of historical representation to the same extent that such schemes were rationalized by Galileo. The second half of the book explores the problems of scientific methodology and attempts to return the body in an explicit way to scientific practice. Ultimately, Galileo's Pendulum offers a discursive method and praxis for resexualizing the history of Galilean science.

Forging a legendary Galileo relic and selling it to a notorious crime boss thrusts restoration specialist Amber Ross and her treasure hunting partner Rick O’Neill into a desperate race to find the real artifact. A machine assumed to be myth. A device capable of more than most think. Ross and O’Neill must uncover secrets long buried, mysteries that take them across the world, staying just ahead of those hunting them. And if they can’t solve the mystery and locate the real relic, neither will escape with their life. Don’t miss this action-packed adventure from bestselling writer, Kat Simons, as it races readers on a thrilling journey to find a historical artifact best forgotten. keywords: Action Adventure Thriller; Mystery Action and Adventure; Thriller; Science Thriller; Women’s Adventure Fiction; Women’s Action and Adventure Fiction; Adventure Mystery; fun action thriller; mystery action thriller; mystery action fiction; mystery crime adventure; historical thriller; conspiracy thriller; science history thriller

The pendulum is a universal topic in primary and secondary schools, but its full potential for learning about physics, the nature of science, and the relationships between science, mathematics, technology, society and culture is seldom realised. Contributions to this 32-chapter anthology deal with the science, history, methodology and pedagogy of pendulum motion. There is ample material for the richer and more cross-disciplinary treatment of the pendulum from elementary school to high school, and through to advanced university classes. Scientists will value the studies on the physics of the pendulum; historians will appreciate the detailed treatment of Galileo, Huygens, Newton and Foucault’s pendulum investigations; psychologists and educators will learn from the papers on Piaget; teachers will welcome the many contributions to pendulum pedagogy. All readers will come away with a new awareness of the importance of the pendulum in the foundation and development of modern science; and for its centrality in so many facets of society and culture.

Galileo Unbound traces the journey that brought us from Galileo's law of free fall to today's geneticists measuring evolutionary drift, entangled quantum particles moving among many worlds, and our lives as trajectories traversing a health space with thousands of dimensions. Remarkably, common themes persist that predict the evolution of species as readily as the orbits of planets or the collapse of stars into black holes. This book tells the history of spaces of expanding dimension and increasing abstraction and how they continue today to give new insight into the physics of complex systems. Galileo published the first modern law of motion, the Law of Fall, that was ideal and simple, laying the foundation upon which Newton built the first theory of dynamics. Early in the twentieth century, geometry became the cause of motion rather than the result when Einstein envisioned the fabric of space-time warped by mass and energy, forcing light rays to bend past the Sun. Possibly more radical was Feynman's dilemma of quantum particles taking all paths at once — setting the stage for the modern fields of quantum field theory and quantum computing. Yet as concepts of motion have evolved, one thing has remained constant, the need to track ever more complex changes and to capture their essence, to find patterns in the chaos as we try to predict and control our world.

In Newton's classical mechanics, time played the role of a monotonically increasing evolution parameter. Einstein rejected the Newtonian concept and instead identified time as the fourth coordinate of a space-time four-vector. Today, scientists are considering different concepts of time as a means of resolving incompatibilities between relativity and quantum mechanics. Some view time as an emergent property of a system rather than a fundamental property, while others consider two temporal variables. The purpose of this book is to examine the role of time in modern physics so that the reader gains an increased awareness of time and its place in our understanding of nature.

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist, and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. From a young age, Galileo showed a great aptitude for mathematics and science. He went on to study at the University of Pisa, where he made his first important scientific discovery: the laws of motion of a pendulum. After leaving Pisa, Galileo taught mathematics at the University of Padua for nearly twenty years. During this time, he conducted a wide range of scientific experiments, including studies of inclined planes, falling bodies, and the motion of projectiles. He also invented the telescope, which he used to make groundbreaking observations of the heavens. In 1610, Galileo published a book called The Starry Messenger, in which he described his telescopic observations of the Moon, Jupiter, and Venus. His discoveries included the four largest moons of Jupiter, which are now known as the Galilean moons. Galileo's work helped to overthrow the prevailing geocentric model of the universe, which placed the Earth at the center, and to establish the heliocentric model, which places the Sun at the center. Galileo's support for the heliocentric model brought him into conflict with the Catholic Church, which at the time held great power and influence. In 1633, Galileo was put on trial by the Inquisition and forced to recant his views. However, he continued to work on his scientific theories in secret, and in 1638 he published his most important work, Two New Sciences. Galileo's work had a profound impact on the development of science. He is considered to be one of the founders of the scientific method, and his discoveries helped to lay the foundation for modern physics and astronomy. Galileo is often referred as the "father of observational astronomy" and the "father of modern science." In the coming following chapters, we will explore Galileo's life and work in more detail. We will discuss his scientific discoveries, his conflict with the Church, and his legacy as one of the greatest scientists of all time.