The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “science”

Loneliness and the Trinity of Creativity: Ada Lovelace, the Poles of the Mind, and the Source of Her Imaginative Powers
Loneliness and the Trinity of Creativity: Ada Lovelace, the Poles of the Mind, and the Source of Her Imaginative Powers

“Those who have learned to walk on the threshold of the unknown worlds… may then with the fair white wings of Imagination hope to soar further into the unexplored amidst which we live.”

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The Everlasting Wonder of Being: How a Cold Cosmos Kindles the Glow of Consciousness
The Everlasting Wonder of Being: How a Cold Cosmos Kindles the Glow of Consciousness

How we went from quanta packages to the laughter of children on a summer afternoon.

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Psychedelic Dinosaurs, Four-Dimensional Hummingbirds, and How We Got Our Vision: Color, Consciousness, and the Dazzling Universe of Tetrachromacy
Psychedelic Dinosaurs, Four-Dimensional Hummingbirds, and How We Got Our Vision: Color, Consciousness, and the Dazzling Universe of Tetrachromacy

“When we pay attention to other animals, our own world expands and deepens.”

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The Soul-Slaking Joy and Body-Poetry of Swimming
The Soul-Slaking Joy and Body-Poetry of Swimming

In praise of the exquisite instrument that channels “the huge chaos of sensations — sensations of temperature, water, force, light.”

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Cloud Chambers and Cosmic Rays: The Quest to Unravel One of the Most Dazzling Mysteries of the Universe
Cloud Chambers and Cosmic Rays: The Quest to Unravel One of the Most Dazzling Mysteries of the Universe

Silk, vapor, and the substance of life.

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A Chaos of Delight: Darwin on the Sublimity and Transcendence of Nature
A Chaos of Delight: Darwin on the Sublimity and Transcendence of Nature

“No one can stand in these solitudes unmoved, and not feel that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body.”

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A Language for the Exhilaration of Being Alive: The Poetic Physicist Alan Lightman on Music and the Universe
A Language for the Exhilaration of Being Alive: The Poetic Physicist Alan Lightman on Music and the Universe

“Nowhere is the joy of existence so apparent as in music… Intelligent life-forms have created a multitude of sounds that express their exhilaration at being alive.”

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The Great Naturalist John Burroughs on the Art of Noticing and What Artists Can Learn from Naturalists
The Great Naturalist John Burroughs on the Art of Noticing and What Artists Can Learn from Naturalists

“We think we have looked at a thing sharply until we are asked for its specific features.”

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Seashells and the Spiral of Wonder at the Intersection of Art and Science
Seashells and the Spiral of Wonder at the Intersection of Art and Science

“Seashells were money before coin, jewelry before gems, art before canvas… To stare into the spiral top of a whelk or cone shell is to see the swirl of the Milky Way.”

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Chance, Choice, and the Avocado: The Strange Evolutionary and Creative History of Earth’s Most Nutritious Fruit
Chance, Choice, and the Avocado: The Strange Evolutionary and Creative History of Earth’s Most Nutritious Fruit

How a confused romancer that survived the Ice Age became a tropical sensation and took over the world.

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