This collection of papers written by leading researchers reflects the forefront of research in the dynamic field of quantum optics. Topics covered include BEC, atomic optics, quantum information, cavity QED and quantum noise processes. This volume forms an indispensable reference source for all those who want to keep up with the latest developments in this area.

Legend told of a rogue planetoid once inhabited by an extremely advanced society that vanished without explanation. It was said that anyone bold enough to find this runaway planet might be rewarded with technology beyond imagination. But, this ghost planet was traveling at nearly the speed of light and only known to pass through a single set of coordinates once every thousand years. It would take a dangerous rendezvous in warped time and space just to confirm the legend, and trying to set foot on a deserted future world promised even greater peril. Join Adrian Tarn and R.J. Smith as they dare to tempt fate on a mission filled with mysteries from the future and dangers from the present. (standalone, Adrian Tarn series #5)

In Resonant Matter, Lutz Koepnick considers contemporary sound and installation art as a unique laboratory of hospitality amid inhospitable times. Inspired by Ragnar Kjartansson's nine-channel video installation The Visitors (2012), the book explores resonance-the ability of objects to be affected by the vibrations of other objects-as a model of art's fleeting promise to make us coexist with things strange and other. In a series of nuanced readings, Koepnick follows the echoes of distant, unexpected, and unheard sounds in twenty-first century art to reflect on the attachments we pursue to sustain our lives and the walls we need to tear down to secure possible futures. The book's nine chapters approach The Visitors from ever-different conceptual angles while bringing it into dialogue with the work of other artists and musicians such as Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Guillermo Galindo, Mischa Kuball, Philipp Lachenmann, Alvien Lucier, Teresa Margolles, Carsten Nicolai, Camille Norment, Susan Philipsz, David Rothenberg, Juliana Snapper, and Tanya Tagaq. With this book, Koepnick situates resonance as a vital concept of contemporary art criticism and sound studies. His analysis encourages us not only to expand our understanding of the role of sound in art, of sound art, but to attune our critical encounter with art to art's own resonant thinking.

The banquet gives rise to a special moment when thought and the senses—words and food—enhance each other. Throughout history, the ideal of the symposium has reconciled the angel and the beast in the human, renewing the interdependence between the mouth that speaks and the mouth that eats. Michel Jeanneret's lively book explores the paradigm of the banquet as a guide to significant tendencies in Renaissance Humanist culture and shows how this culture in turn illuminates the tensions between physical and mental pleasures. Ranging widely over French, Italian, German, and Latin texts, Jeanneret not only investigates the meal as a narrative artefact but enquires as well into aspects of sixteenth-century anthropology and aesthetics.

The Hum of the World is an invitation to contemplate what would happen if we heard the world as attentively as we see it. Balancing big ideas, playful wit and lyrical prose, this imaginative volume identifies the role of sound in Western experience as the primary medium in which the presence and persistence of life acquires tangible form. The positive experience of aliveness is not merely in accord with sound, but inaccessible, even inconceivable, without it. Lawrence Kramer’s poetic book roves freely over music, media, language, philosophy, and science from the ancient world to the present, along the way revealing how life is apprehended through sounds ranging from pandemonium to the faint background hum of the world. This warm meditation on auditory culture uncovers the knowledge and pleasure waiting when we learn that the world is alive with sound.

This edition contains carefully selected contributions by leading scientists in high-resolution laser spectroscopy, quantum optics and laser physics. Emphasis is given to ultrafast laser phenomena, implementations of frequency combs, precision spectroscopy and high resolution metrology. Furthermore, applications of the fundamentals of quantum mechanics are widely covered. This book is dedicated to Nobel prize winner Theodor W. Hänsch on the occasion of his 75th birthday. The contributions are reprinted from a topical collection published in Applied Physics B, 2016. Selected contributions are available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license via link.springer.com. Please see the copyright page for further details.

Physics

Remediating Sound studies the phenomena of remixing, mashup and recomposition: forms of reuse and sampling that have come to characterise much of YouTube's audiovisual content. Through collaborative composition, collage and cover songs to reaction videos and political activism , users from diverse backgrounds have embraced the democratised space of YouTube to open up new and innovative forms of sonic creativity and push the boundaries of audiovisual possibilities. Observing the reciprocal flow of influence that runs between various online platforms, 12 chapters position YouTube as a central hub for the exploration of digital sound, music and the moving image. With special focus on aspects of networked creativity that remain overlooked in contemporary scholarship, including library music, memetic media, artificial intelligence, the sonic arts and music fandom, this volume offers interdisciplinary insight into contemporary audiovisual culture.