Peter Pesic
Biographic Data
| ID | 961750 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Peter Pesic |
| GIVEN NAMES | Peter |
| FAMILY NAME | Pesic |
| SIGNATURE | PESIC P |
| AFFILIATIONS | St. John's College of Nursing |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5539-0518 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 29 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1997 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The Horn of Enlightenment
In his operas, Mozart followed contemporary practice by using the clarinet to set the mood for amorous scenes, but he adapted this into a new kind of topic that dramatises his characters’ changing self-knowledge and growing enlightenment. In so doing, he emphasised both their recognition of their true feelings and the political and moral implications for their subsequent actions. This is exemplified in La clemenza di Tito , in which a clarinet (o…
Sing Aloud Harmonious Spheres
Sing Aloud Harmonious Spheres: Renaissance Conceptions of Cosmic Harmony. Jacomien Prins and Maude Vanhaelen, eds. Warwick Studies in the Humanities. London: Routledge, 2018. xii + 294 pp. $149.95. - Volume 72 Issue 1
Polyphonic Minds
Music, Mechanism, and the “Sonic Turn” in Physical Diagnosis
The sonic diagnostic techniques of percussion and mediate auscultation advocated by Leopold von Auenbrugger and R. T. H. Laennec developed within larger musical contexts of practice, notation, and epistemology. Earlier, François-Nicolas Marquet proposed a musical notation of pulse that connected felt pulsation with heard music. Though contemporary vitalists rejected Marquet's work, mechanists such as Albrecht von Haller included it into the large…
Music and the Making of Modern Science
Music and the Making of Modern Science
Hearing the Field
The entwined stories of Charles Wheatstone and Michael Faraday interwove sound and electromagnetism, as had Hans Christian Ørsted’s original discoveries in that field. Though Faraday lacked mathematical education, his feeling for music complemented his visual and experimental turn of mind. Wheatstone also lacked scientific education but came from a family of instrument builders and invented a number of musical devices, including the concertina. W…
Young’s Musical Optics
Building on the work of Leonhard Euler, Thomas Young advanced the wave theory of sound and light. This chapter describes how Young found his way to music against the strictures of his Quaker milieu. His new-found passions for music and dance informed his studies of sound and languages. His early work on the accommodation of the eye remained a touchstone for his later scientific development. At many points, his understanding of sound influenced an…
Music and the Origins of Ancient Science
Music entered deeply into the making of modern science because it was a crucial element of ancient natural philosophy, through which it thereafter remained active well into the formation of the “new philosophy” during the seventeenth century. The Pythagorean connection between music, numbers, and the sensual world remained potent in the quadrivium, the four-fold study of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music that was the centerpiece of highe…
Thomas Young and Eighteenth-Century Tempi
The physician, natural philosopher, and linguist Thomas Young in 1800 provided a table of tempi gauged by a pendulum. Calibrated against Quantz’s pulse-based system (1752), Young’s observations quantitatively corroborate the generally faster contemporary tempi, while also indicating cases in which they should be moderated. His statement about the relative order of very slow and fast tempo markings contradict several contemporary English sources; …
Francis Bacon, Violence, and the Motion of Liberty
The elucidation of Francis Bacon's new approach to nature calls for constant comparison with Aristotle's terminology, the common starting point for Bacon and his contemporaries. What Bacon called "the violence of impediments" is only understandable in relation to Aristotle's technical use of the term "violence," as distinguished from other common uses of this word. Bacon's "impediments" do not violate nature but reveal its latent possibilities, f…
Hermann Weyl’s neighborhood
Thomas Young's Musical Optics
Thomas Young’s interest in music affected his scientific work throughout his career. His 1800–1803 papers interrelate musical, acoustic, and optical topics to translate the wave theory from sound to light, as does his synoptic Lectures on Natural Philosophy (1807) in justifying his discoveries to a larger audience. Returning to optics in 1817, in the aftermath of the work of Fresnel, Young grounded in musico-acoustical studies his suggestion that…
Hearing the Irrational
Because the modern concept of number emerged within a quadrivium that included music alongside arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy, musical considerations affected mathematical developments. Michael Stifel embedded the then-paradoxical term "irrational numbers" (numerici irrationales) in a musical context (1544), though his philosophical aversion to the "cloud of infinity" surrounding such numbers finally outweighed his musical arguments in their…
Proteus Rebound
Though Carolyn Merchant has agreed that Francis Bacon did not advocate the "torture of nature," she still maintains that "the very essence of the experimental method arose out of human torture transferred onto nature." Her arguments do not address serious problems of logic, context, and contrary evidence. Her particular insistence on the influence of the torture of witches ignores Bacon's skepticism about witchcraft as superstitious or imaginary.…
Isaac Newton and the mystery of the major sixth
Isaac Newton's only extended manuscript 'Of Musick' is here transcribed with commentary, especially concerning his analogy between music and colour. This manuscript shows that Newton's musical judgements relied more on experiential qualities, on 'sweetness' or 'gratefulness', than on purely theoretical preconceptions. The manuscript also shows that he formulated the music/colour analogy years before he could have read suggestions of it in Robert …
On mathematics, imagination & the beauty of numbers
BARRY M AZUR: I can't answer that question, but I can offer some com ments. A person's first steps in his or her mathematical development are ex ceedingly important. Early education deserves our efforts and ingenuity. But also here is a message to any older per son who has never given a thought to mathematics or science during their school days or afterwards : You may be ready to start. Starting can be intellectu ally thrilling, and there are qui…
Plato and Zero
The bell & the buzzer
Toute realite a son prix et sa valeur. La possibilite de l'illusion est toujours presente, conduisant a une certaine irrealite. La difference entre les niveaux de realite ne peut donc pas etre ecartee
Seeing Double
The unknown history of surveillance in relation to changing systems of representation and visual arts practice. The separateness and connection of individuals is perhaps the central question of human life: What, exactly, is my individuality? To what degree is it unique? To what degree can it be shared, and how? To the many philosophical and literary speculations about these topics over time, modern science has added the curious twist of quantum t…
Wrestling with Proteus
Although many writers state that Francis Bacon advocated the torture of nature in order to force her to reveal her secrets, a close study of his works contradicts this claim. His treatment of the myth of Proteus depicts a heroic mutual struggle, not the torture of a slavish victim. By the "vexation" of nature Bacon meant an encounter between the scientist and nature in which both are tested and purified
Secrets, Symbols, and Systems
Codebreaking was an important secret of state in early modern courts. Its practitioners included several important figures in the history of mathematics, particularly Francois Viete, whose innovations in method and symbolism were crucial for modern algebra. Viete formulated an "infallible rule" for decryption that uses concepts of symbol and system similar to those of his new algebra. As the Book of Nature began to be read in new ways, the exampl…
Wrestling with Proteus
Although many writers state that Francis Bacon advocated the torture of nature in order to force her to reveal her secrets, a close study of his works contradicts this claim. His treatment of the myth of Proteus depicts a heroic mutual struggle, not the torture of a slavish victim. By the "vexation" of nature Bacon meant an encounter between the scientist and nature in which both are tested and purified
Proteus Rebound
Though Carolyn Merchant has agreed that Francis Bacon did not advocate the "torture of nature," she still maintains that "the very essence of the experimental method arose out of human torture transferred onto nature." Her arguments do not address serious problems of logic, context, and contrary evidence. Her particular insistence on the influence of the torture of witches ignores Bacon's skepticism about witchcraft as superstitious or imaginary.…
Hearing the Irrational
Because the modern concept of number emerged within a quadrivium that included music alongside arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy, musical considerations affected mathematical developments. Michael Stifel embedded the then-paradoxical term "irrational numbers" (numerici irrationales) in a musical context (1544), though his philosophical aversion to the "cloud of infinity" surrounding such numbers finally outweighed his musical arguments in their…
Secrets, Symbols, and Systems
Codebreaking was an important secret of state in early modern courts. Its practitioners included several important figures in the history of mathematics, particularly Francois Viete, whose innovations in method and symbolism were crucial for modern algebra. Viete formulated an "infallible rule" for decryption that uses concepts of symbol and system similar to those of his new algebra. As the Book of Nature began to be read in new ways, the exampl…
Francis Bacon, Violence, and the Motion of Liberty
The elucidation of Francis Bacon's new approach to nature calls for constant comparison with Aristotle's terminology, the common starting point for Bacon and his contemporaries. What Bacon called "the violence of impediments" is only understandable in relation to Aristotle's technical use of the term "violence," as distinguished from other common uses of this word. Bacon's "impediments" do not violate nature but reveal its latent possibilities, f…
Thomas Young's Musical Optics
Thomas Young’s interest in music affected his scientific work throughout his career. His 1800–1803 papers interrelate musical, acoustic, and optical topics to translate the wave theory from sound to light, as does his synoptic Lectures on Natural Philosophy (1807) in justifying his discoveries to a larger audience. Returning to optics in 1817, in the aftermath of the work of Fresnel, Young grounded in musico-acoustical studies his suggestion that…
Isaac Newton and the mystery of the major sixth
Isaac Newton's only extended manuscript 'Of Musick' is here transcribed with commentary, especially concerning his analogy between music and colour. This manuscript shows that Newton's musical judgements relied more on experiential qualities, on 'sweetness' or 'gratefulness', than on purely theoretical preconceptions. The manuscript also shows that he formulated the music/colour analogy years before he could have read suggestions of it in Robert …
The bell & the buzzer
Toute realite a son prix et sa valeur. La possibilite de l'illusion est toujours presente, conduisant a une certaine irrealite. La difference entre les niveaux de realite ne peut donc pas etre ecartee
Secrets, Symbols, and Systems
Codebreaking was an important secret of state in early modern courts. Its practitioners included several important figures in the history of mathematics, particularly Francois Viete, whose innovations in method and symbolism were crucial for modern algebra. Viete formulated an "infallible rule" for decryption that uses concepts of symbol and system similar to those of his new algebra. As the Book of Nature began to be read in new ways, the exampl…
Wrestling with Proteus
Although many writers state that Francis Bacon advocated the torture of nature in order to force her to reveal her secrets, a close study of his works contradicts this claim. His treatment of the myth of Proteus depicts a heroic mutual struggle, not the torture of a slavish victim. By the "vexation" of nature Bacon meant an encounter between the scientist and nature in which both are tested and purified
Seeing Double
The unknown history of surveillance in relation to changing systems of representation and visual arts practice. The separateness and connection of individuals is perhaps the central question of human life: What, exactly, is my individuality? To what degree is it unique? To what degree can it be shared, and how? To the many philosophical and literary speculations about these topics over time, modern science has added the curious twist of quantum t…
The bell & the buzzer
Toute realite a son prix et sa valeur. La possibilite de l'illusion est toujours presente, conduisant a une certaine irrealite. La difference entre les niveaux de realite ne peut donc pas etre ecartee
Plato and Zero
On mathematics, imagination & the beauty of numbers
BARRY M AZUR: I can't answer that question, but I can offer some com ments. A person's first steps in his or her mathematical development are ex ceedingly important. Early education deserves our efforts and ingenuity. But also here is a message to any older per son who has never given a thought to mathematics or science during their school days or afterwards : You may be ready to start. Starting can be intellectu ally thrilling, and there are qui…
Isaac Newton and the mystery of the major sixth
Isaac Newton's only extended manuscript 'Of Musick' is here transcribed with commentary, especially concerning his analogy between music and colour. This manuscript shows that Newton's musical judgements relied more on experiential qualities, on 'sweetness' or 'gratefulness', than on purely theoretical preconceptions. The manuscript also shows that he formulated the music/colour analogy years before he could have read suggestions of it in Robert …
Proteus Rebound
Though Carolyn Merchant has agreed that Francis Bacon did not advocate the "torture of nature," she still maintains that "the very essence of the experimental method arose out of human torture transferred onto nature." Her arguments do not address serious problems of logic, context, and contrary evidence. Her particular insistence on the influence of the torture of witches ignores Bacon's skepticism about witchcraft as superstitious or imaginary.…
Hearing the Irrational
Because the modern concept of number emerged within a quadrivium that included music alongside arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy, musical considerations affected mathematical developments. Michael Stifel embedded the then-paradoxical term "irrational numbers" (numerici irrationales) in a musical context (1544), though his philosophical aversion to the "cloud of infinity" surrounding such numbers finally outweighed his musical arguments in their…
Hermann Weyl’s neighborhood
Thomas Young's Musical Optics
Thomas Young’s interest in music affected his scientific work throughout his career. His 1800–1803 papers interrelate musical, acoustic, and optical topics to translate the wave theory from sound to light, as does his synoptic Lectures on Natural Philosophy (1807) in justifying his discoveries to a larger audience. Returning to optics in 1817, in the aftermath of the work of Fresnel, Young grounded in musico-acoustical studies his suggestion that…
Music and the Making of Modern Science
Music and the Making of Modern Science
Hearing the Field
The entwined stories of Charles Wheatstone and Michael Faraday interwove sound and electromagnetism, as had Hans Christian Ørsted’s original discoveries in that field. Though Faraday lacked mathematical education, his feeling for music complemented his visual and experimental turn of mind. Wheatstone also lacked scientific education but came from a family of instrument builders and invented a number of musical devices, including the concertina. W…
Young’s Musical Optics
Building on the work of Leonhard Euler, Thomas Young advanced the wave theory of sound and light. This chapter describes how Young found his way to music against the strictures of his Quaker milieu. His new-found passions for music and dance informed his studies of sound and languages. His early work on the accommodation of the eye remained a touchstone for his later scientific development. At many points, his understanding of sound influenced an…
Music and the Origins of Ancient Science
Music entered deeply into the making of modern science because it was a crucial element of ancient natural philosophy, through which it thereafter remained active well into the formation of the “new philosophy” during the seventeenth century. The Pythagorean connection between music, numbers, and the sensual world remained potent in the quadrivium, the four-fold study of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music that was the centerpiece of highe…
Thomas Young and Eighteenth-Century Tempi
The physician, natural philosopher, and linguist Thomas Young in 1800 provided a table of tempi gauged by a pendulum. Calibrated against Quantz’s pulse-based system (1752), Young’s observations quantitatively corroborate the generally faster contemporary tempi, while also indicating cases in which they should be moderated. His statement about the relative order of very slow and fast tempo markings contradict several contemporary English sources; …
Francis Bacon, Violence, and the Motion of Liberty
The elucidation of Francis Bacon's new approach to nature calls for constant comparison with Aristotle's terminology, the common starting point for Bacon and his contemporaries. What Bacon called "the violence of impediments" is only understandable in relation to Aristotle's technical use of the term "violence," as distinguished from other common uses of this word. Bacon's "impediments" do not violate nature but reveal its latent possibilities, f…
Music, Mechanism, and the “Sonic Turn” in Physical Diagnosis
The sonic diagnostic techniques of percussion and mediate auscultation advocated by Leopold von Auenbrugger and R. T. H. Laennec developed within larger musical contexts of practice, notation, and epistemology. Earlier, François-Nicolas Marquet proposed a musical notation of pulse that connected felt pulsation with heard music. Though contemporary vitalists rejected Marquet's work, mechanists such as Albrecht von Haller included it into the large…
Polyphonic Minds
Sing Aloud Harmonious Spheres
Sing Aloud Harmonious Spheres: Renaissance Conceptions of Cosmic Harmony. Jacomien Prins and Maude Vanhaelen, eds. Warwick Studies in the Humanities. London: Routledge, 2018. xii + 294 pp. $149.95. - Volume 72 Issue 1
The Horn of Enlightenment
In his operas, Mozart followed contemporary practice by using the clarinet to set the mood for amorous scenes, but he adapted this into a new kind of topic that dramatises his characters’ changing self-knowledge and growing enlightenment. In so doing, he emphasised both their recognition of their true feelings and the political and moral implications for their subsequent actions. This is exemplified in La clemenza di Tito , in which a clarinet (o…
Philosophy (17 works) · Art (13 works) · Epistemology (12 works) · Literature (11 works) · Philosophy (11 works) · Mathematics (8 works) · Musical (7 works) · Aesthetics (6 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · History (6 works)