Physics in the Arts
- 3rd Edition - January 16, 2021
- Imprint: Academic Press
- Author: Pupa U.P.A. Gilbert
- Language: English
- Hardback ISBN:9 7 8 - 0 - 1 2 - 8 2 4 3 4 7 - 3
- eBook ISBN:9 7 8 - 0 - 1 2 - 8 2 4 3 4 8 - 0
Physics in the Arts, Third Edition gives science enthusiasts and liberal arts students an engaging, accessible exploration of physical phenomena, particularly with regard to sound… Read more
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Request a sales quotePhysics in the Arts, Third Edition gives science enthusiasts and liberal arts students an engaging, accessible exploration of physical phenomena, particularly with regard to sound and light. This book offers an alternative route to science literacy for those interested in the arts, music and photography. Suitable for a typical course on sound and light for non-science majors, Gilbert and Haeberli’s trusted text covers the nature of sound and sound perception as well as important concepts and topics such as light and light waves, reflection and refraction, lenses, the eye and the ear, photography, color and color vision, and additive and subtractive color mixing.
Additional sections cover color generating mechanisms, periodic oscillations, simple harmonic motion, damped oscillations and resonance, vibration of strings, Fourier analysis, musical scales and musical instruments.
- Winner of a 2022 Textbook Excellence Award (College) (Texty) from the Textbook and Academic Authors Association
- Offers an alternative route to science literacy for those interested in the visual arts, music and photography
- Includes a new and unique quantitative encoding approach to color vision, additive and subtractive color mixing, a section on a simplified approach to quantitative digital photography, how the ear-brain system works as a Fourier analyzer, and updated and expanded exercises and solutions
- Provides a wealth of student resources including in-text solutions and online materials including demo and lecture videos, practice problems, and other useful files: https://www.elsevier.com/books-and-journals/book-companion/9780128243473
- Supplies teaching materials for qualified instructors, including chapter image banks, model homework sets, and model exams: ttps://educate.elsevier.com/book/details/9780128243473
Undergraduate students
- Cover image
- Title page
- Table of Contents
- Copyright
- Introduction
- Acknowledgments
- Chapter 1. Light and light waves
- 1.1. Dual nature of light
- 1.2. Speed of light
- 1.3. Electromagnetic spectrum
- 1.4. Polarization
- 1.5. Polarizers
- 1.6. Large and small numbers
- Chapter 2. Reflection and refraction
- 2.1. Specular reflection of light
- 2.2. Refraction of light
- 2.3. Total internal reflection
- 2.4. Due to refraction, things are not where they appear
- 2.5. Reflection and refraction in diamonds
- 2.6. Rainbows
- 2.7. Interesting brightening and darkening effects
- 2.8. Questions
- Chapter 3. Lenses
- 3.1. Refraction by a prism
- 3.2. Converging and diverging lenses
- 3.3. Focal length
- 3.4. Real and virtual images
- 3.5. Three easy rays
- 3.6. The thin lens formula
- 3.7. More on converging and diverging lenses
- 3.8. Lens aberrations
- 3.9. Lenses in art
- 3.10. Questions
- Chapter 4. The human eye
- 4.1. Components of the human eye
- 4.2. Accommodation
- 4.3. Eyeglasses
- 4.4. Nearsighted eye
- 4.5. Farsighted eye
- 4.6. Astigmatic eye
- 4.7. Presbyopia and multifocal lenses
- 4.8. Contact lenses and eye surgery
- Chapter 5. Photography
- 5.1. The camera
- 5.2. Focusing the camera
- 5.3. Taking a photo: exposure time, f number, and ISO
- 5.4. Shutters
- 5.5. Exposure time of shutter speed
- 5.6. Aperture and f number
- 5.7. The sensor and its ISO
- 5.8. Putting it all together: taking a photograph
- 5.9. Fun photographic facts
- 5.10. Questions
- Chapter 6. Color and color vision
- 6.1. Physical and perceived color
- 6.2. Sensitivity curves of cones
- 6.3. Complementary colors
- 6.4. Mixed and spectral colors
- 6.5. Definition of color: hue, saturation, brightness
- 6.6. The perceived brightness depends on the surroundings
- 6.7. All colors in the spectrum simplified to RGB
- 6.8. Why is the sky blue, the sunset red, and a lemon yellow?
- 6.9. Color blindness
- 6.10. Color seen by other animals
- 6.11. Color adaptations
- 6.12. Questions
- Chapter 7. Additive color mixing
- 7.1. Mixing lights
- 7.2. Primary colors
- 7.3. Adding primary colors
- 7.4. The color triangle
- 7.5. Low-brightness colors
- 7.6. Spectral colors
- 7.7. Nonspectral colors
- 7.8. Complementary colors on the color triangle
- 7.9. Additive color mixing in painting
- 7.10. Questions
- Chapter 8. Subtractive color mixing
- 8.1. Spectra
- 8.2. Filters and transmission
- 8.3. Paints and scattering
- 8.4. Subtractive primary colors
- 8.5. Blue and yellow may or may not make green
- 8.6. Multiple scattering
- 8.7. Spectra, computers, and the color triangle
- 8.8. Change in hue
- 8.9. Mixing unequal amounts of paint
- 8.10. Using a computer to mix paints to obtain any color you wish
- 8.11. Celestial sleuthing
- 8.12. Questions
- Chapter 9. Color-generating mechanisms
- 9.1. Illuminating light
- 9.2. Pigments in animals and plants
- 9.3. Structural color in animals: iridescence
- 9.4. More iridescent color-generating mechanisms
- 9.5. Color in gemstones
- 9.6. Mineral color due to charge transfer
- 9.7. Mineral color due to color centers
- 9.8. Color in gems due to band gap absorption of light
- Chapter 10. Sound waves
- 10.1. Mechanical waves
- 10.2. Propagation of a pulse
- 10.3. Longitudinal and transverse waves
- 10.4. Sound waves in air are longitudinal waves
- 10.5. Frequency
- 10.6. Speed of sound in air
- 10.7. Wavelength and frequency
- 10.8. Relevance to the size of instruments and loudspeakers
- 10.9. Sound propagation
- 10.10. Concert Hall acoustics
- 10.11. Questions
- Chapter 11. Simple harmonic motion
- 11.1. Definition of simple harmonic motion
- 11.2. Various simple harmonic oscillators
- 11.3. Hooke's law
- 11.4. Pendulum
- 11.5. Mass on a spring
- 11.6. Frequency of oscillation
- 11.7. Anharmonic oscillators
- 11.8. Waveform of simple harmonic oscillators
- 11.9. Phase angle
- 11.10. Other nonsimple, harmonic oscillators
- 11.11. Questions
- Chapter 12. Damping and resonance
- 12.1. Damped oscillations, damping time
- 12.2. Resonance
- 12.3. Build-up and decay of musical notes
- 12.4. Resonators in musical instruments and speakers
- 12.5. Questions
- Chapter 13. Vibration of strings
- 13.1. Pulse on a string
- 13.2. The first, fundamental mode
- 13.3. Higher modes
- 13.4. Traveling versus standing waves
- 13.5. The voicing formula
- 13.6. How modes relate to music: partials
- 13.7. Damping of higher partials
- 13.8. Plucked strings: missing partials
- 13.9. Playing harmonics
- 13.10. Real strings are stiff
- 13.11. Guitar, violin, harp, and piano strings
- 13.12. Questions
- Chapter 14. Waves in pipes
- 14.1. Pressure pulse in a pipe
- 14.2. Open and closed pipes, boundary conditions
- 14.3. Acoustic length
- 14.4. Standing waves in open pipes
- 14.5. Fundamental frequency of open pipe
- 14.6. Higher modes of open pipe
- 14.7. Fundamental frequency of closed pipe
- 14.8. Higher modes of closed pipe
- 14.9. Playing tunes on wind instruments: fingerholes and overblowing
- 14.10. Other shapes
- 14.11. Questions
- Chapter 15. Superposition, beats, and harmony
- 15.1. Superposition of sound waves, phase, interference
- 15.2. Principle of superposition
- 15.3. Two pure tones of the same frequency, phase shift as an angle
- 15.4. Beats
- 15.5. Harmony
- 15.6. Phase changes the waveform, not the sound
- 15.7. Just for fun: lissajous figures
- 15.8. Questions
- Chapter 16. Musical scales
- 16.1. The need for musical scales
- 16.2. Musical intervals
- 16.3. Harmony and small number ratios
- 16.4. The major triad
- 16.5. Constructing the just scale
- 16.6. Names of intervals
- 16.7. Whole-tone and semitone intervals
- 16.8. Transposing: why black keys?
- 16.9. The problems with the just scale
- 16.10. Perfection sacrificed: the tempered scale
- 16.11. Major and minor scales
- 16.12. The natural scale
- 16.13. Questions
- Chapter 17. Fourier analysis
- 17.1. Fourier's theorem
- 17.2. Fourier spectra
- 17.3. Fourier analyzer
- 17.4. Fourier synthesis
- 17.5. Why can't you synthesize a Stradivari?
- 17.6. Questions
- Chapter 18. Musical instruments
- 18.1. The structure of musical instruments
- 18.2. Excitation mechanism
- 18.3. Playing a tune
- 18.4. Strings
- 18.5. Woodwinds
- 18.6. Brass instruments
- 18.7. Percussion instruments
- 18.8. Voice
- 18.9. Questions
- Chapter 19. Sound perception: Timbre, loudness, and pitch
- 19.1. Timbre and Fourier spectrum
- 19.2. Loudness, amplitude, volume, sound intensity level, and decibels
- 19.3. Loudness also depends on frequency
- 19.4. Pitch and frequency
- Chapter 20. The ear
- 20.1. The outer ear
- 20.2. The middle ear
- 20.3. The inner ear
- 20.4. Amplitude and loudness
- 20.5. Frequency, period, and sequence of nerve pulses sent to the brain
- Chapter 21. Solutions to all questions
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 10
- Chapter 11
- Chapter 12
- Chapter 13
- Chapter 14
- Chapter 15
- Chapter 16
- Chapter 17
- Chapter 18
- Chapter 22. Formulae, constants, and useful physical data
- 22.1. Light
- 22.2. Sound
- Index
- Edition: 3
- Published: January 16, 2021
- Imprint: Academic Press
- No. of pages: 400
- Language: English
- Hardback ISBN: 9780128243473
- eBook ISBN: 9780128243480
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Pupa U.P.A. Gilbert
Pupa Gilbert is a Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Physics at the University of Wisconsin – Madison and an amateur surrealist painter. She is a physicist with passionate loves for biology, geoscience, and modern art. She studied at the Sapienza University of Rome, worked as a staff scientist at the Italian National Research Council and at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne until she joined the University of Wisconsin in 1999. Her research focuses on biominerals, including coral skeletons, tooth enamel, nacre, and sea urchin spines. She studies them with spectromicroscopy methods at the Advanced Light Source in Berkeley, where she discovers the complex structures of the biominerals, and their formation mechanisms. She won several awards for her research and teaching, including the UW-Madison Distinguished Teaching Award in 2011, Radcliffe Fellowship 2014-15, and the David A. Shirley Award in 2018. She lives in Madison and Berkeley with her husband Ben.
Affiliations and expertise
University of Wisconsin-Madison, USARead Physics in the Arts on ScienceDirect