The Museum of Imaginary Musical Instruments Deirdre Loughridge & Thomas Patteson London: Reaktion, 2026, hb., 199pps., 88 illus., £13.55 The idea that the universe has an underlying sonic structure is as old as philosophy, and as perennial. Ancient observations of planetary orbits encouraged Pythagoras to hypothesize that just as the pitch of musical notes was… Continue reading
Posts Tagged → Isaac Newton
Samuel Pepys – maker of the Navy, shaper of Stuart England
Many people throughout history have kept diaries of some kind, but I suggest that Samuel Pepys is, as the Encyclopædia Britannica puts it, “the greatest diarist of all.” Pepys’ 1.25 million words on the period 1660-1669 is not just a unique record of a formative and hugely interesting period in English life, but a ground-breaking… Continue reading
Starlight expression
Phænomena: Doppelmayr’s Celestial Atlas Giles Sparrow, London: Thames & Hudson, 2022, 255pp., £50 Johann Doppelmayr (1677-1750) spent most of his life in Nuremberg, but had a European reputation for his writings on astronomy and mathematics. Nuremberg had long been an intellectual and technical as well as political powerhouse, and as a young man Doppelmayr had… Continue reading
John Aubrey – remembrancer, Romantic and forward-thinker
JOHN AUBREY – REMEMBRANCER, ROMANTIC AND FORWARD-THINKER John Aubrey, My Own Life Ruth Scurr, London: Chatto & Windus, 2015, hb., 518pp, £25 Just as English painting is renowned for portraiture, so English letters have been illuminated by some of the greatest biographers ever to burnish world literature. After Boswell, the best-known is John Aubrey (1626-1697),… Continue reading