The theme of The Planetary Clock is the representation of time in postmodern culture and the way temporality as a global phenomenon manifests itself differently across an antipodean axis. To trace postmodernism in an expansive spatial and temporal arc, from its formal experimentation in the 1960s to environmental concerns in the twenty-first century, is to describe a richer and more complex version of this cultural phenomenon. Exploring different scales of time from a Southern Hemisphere perspective, with a special emphasis on issues of Indigeneity and the Anthropocene, The Planetary Clock offers a wide-ranging, revisionist account of postmodernism, reinterpreting literature, film, music, and visual art of the post-1960 period within a planetary framework. By bringing the culture of Australia and New Zealand into dialogue with other Western narratives, it suggests how an antipodean impulse, involving the transposition of the world into different spatial and temporal dimensions, has long been an integral (if generally occluded) aspect of postmodernism. Taking its title from a Florentine clock designed in 1510 to measure worldly time alongside the rotation of the planets, The Planetary Clock ranges across well-known American postmodernists (John Barth, Toni Morrison) to more recent science fiction writers (Octavia Butler, Richard Powers), while bringing the US tradition into juxtaposition with both its English (Philip Larkin, Ian McEwan) and Australian (Les Murray, Alexis Wright) counterparts. By aligning cultural postmodernism with music (Messiaen, Ligeti, Birtwistle), the visual arts (Hockney, Blackman, Fiona Hall), and cinema (Rohmer, Haneke, Tarantino), this volume enlarges our understanding of global postmodernism for the twenty-first century.

Astrology is the Queen of Timing! One of the great benefits you can gain through astrological knowledge is the ability to choose the appropriate time for your purposes. A Time for Magick shows you how to work toward your magickal, spiritual, or mundane goals in harmony with the movements of the planets. Here you will learn easy techniques for planning ahead with astrology. You'll gain a new understanding of the themes of the Sun, Moon, and all eight planets of basic astrology: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. More significantly, you'll learn to conjure planetary energies within yourself, and to use those energies creatively and advantageously in your life. In this book, you'll discover: • Rituals with spellworkings for the Sun, Moon, and each of the planets • Guided meditations for each of the planets • Perpetual planetary hour tables and how to use them • Interpretations for your planetary hour of birth • How to read and use an astrological calendar Don't wait and wonder what the planets may mean to your fate. Take charge of your destiny by directing planetary energies to your best advantage! "Maria Kay Simms has a rare gift for taking a complicated topic and distilling the most essential data for the reader. Whether you are a professional astrologer, a practicing Wiccan, or someone who wants to improve your timing in life, A Time for Magick has valuable information for you. Whatever you want---love, health, wealth, happiness---is more likely to be achieved if you make the right moves at the right times. A Time for Magick shows you how to do that---quickly and easily." Maritha Pottenger author of Complete Horoscope Interpretation and Planets on the Move

With his critically acclaimed best-sellers The Mathematical Tourism and Islands of Truth, Ivars Peterson took readers to the frontiers of modern mathematics. His new book provides an up-to-date look at one of science's greatest detective stories: the search for order in the workings of the solar system. In the late 1600s, Sir Isaac Newton provided what astronomers had long sought: a seemingly reliable way of calculating planetary orbits and positions. Newton's laws of motion and his coherent, mathematical view of the universe dominated scientific discourse for centuries. At the same time, observers recorded subtle, unexpected movements of the planets and other bodies, suggesting that the solar system is not as placid and predictable as its venerable clock work image suggests. Today, scientists can go beyond the hand calculations, mathematical tables, and massive observational logs that limited the explorations of Newton, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Tycho Brahe, and others. Using supercomputers to simulate the dynamics of the solar system, modern astronomers are learning more about the motions they observe and uncovering some astonishing examples of chaotic behavior in the heavens. Nonetheless, the long-term stability of the solar system remains a perplexing, unsolved issue, with each step toward its resolution exposing additional uncertainties and deeper mysteries. To show how our view of the solar system has changed from clocklike precision to chaos and complexity, Newton's Clock describes the development of celestial mechanics through the ages - from the star charts of ancient navigators to the seminal discoveries of the 17th century from the crucial work of Poincare to thestartling, sometimes controversial findings and theories made possible by modern mathematics and computer simulations. The result makes for entertaining and provocative reading, equal parts science, history and intellectual adventure.

The Cosmic Clock has been written for traders and investors who are seeking to understand the cosmic forces that influence emotion and the financial markets. This book will acquaint you with an extensive range of astrological and mathematical phenomena. From the Golden Mean and Fibonacci Sequence through planetary transit lines, quantum lines, the McWhirter method, planetary conjunctions and market cycles, the numerous illustrated examples in this book will show you how these unique phenomena can deepen your understanding of the financial markets and make you a better trader and investor.

The high accuracy of modern astronomical spatial-temporal reference systems has made them considerably complex. This book offers a comprehensive overview of such systems. It begins with a discussion of ‘The Problem of Time’, including recent developments in the art of clock making (e.g., optical clocks) and various time scales. The authors address the definitions and realization of spatial coordinates by reference to remote celestial objects such as quasars. After an extensive treatment of classical equinox-based coordinates, new paradigms for setting up a celestial reference system are introduced that no longer refer to the translational and rotational motion of the Earth. The role of relativity in the definition and realization of such systems is clarified. The topics presented in this book are complemented by exercises (with solutions). The authors offer a series of files, written in Maple, a standard computer algebra system, to help readers get a feel for the various models and orders of magnitude. Beyond astrometry, the main fields of application of high-precision astronomical spatial-temporal reference systems and frames are navigation (GPS, interplanetary spacecraft navigation) and global geodynamics, which provide a high-precision Celestial Reference System and its link to any terrestrial spatial-temporal reference system. Mankind’s urgent environmental questions can only be answered in the context of appropriate reference systems in which both aspects, space and time, are realized with a sufficiently high level of accuracy. This book addresses all those interested in high-precision reference systems and the various techniques (GPS, Very Long Baseline Interferometry, Satellite Laser Ranging, Lunar Laser Ranging) necessary for their realization, including the production and dissemination of time signals.

This book gives not only a detailed delineation of the artistic and technical components of the 1571–74 clock but it also presents new insighst in the astronomical indications and the underlying conceptional framework.

Non-technical and accessible primer providing key foundational knowledge on quantum mechanics and quantum field theory Quantum Untangling introduces the readers to the fascinating and strange realm of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, written in an accessible manner while not shying away from using mathematics where necessary. The book goes into sufficient depth and conveys basic and more intricate concepts such as wave-particle duality, wave functions, the superposition principle, quantum tunneling, the quantum harmonic oscillator, the Dirac equation, and Feynman diagrams. It also covers the physics of the Higgs boson and provides a glimpse into string theory and loop quantum gravity. Overall, the author introduces complex concepts of quantum mechanics in an accessible and fun-to-read manner while laying the groundwork for mastering an advanced level of treatment in standard quantum mechanics textbooks and university courses. Quantum Untangling includes information on: Special relativity, time and length distortion, Einstein’s famous equation, how Einstein figured it out, and the implications for energy, mass and momentum Wave particle duality, discussing what classical physics cannot explain, quanta of light and the photoelectric effect, De Broglie’s crazy idea, and the double-slit experiment Making sense of Schrödinger’s equation, angular momentum and the wave function, angular rotational energy, atomic structure and molecular bonds Spin, Quantum Electrodynamics, gauge invariance, the strong and weak forces, plus a step-by-step description of the Higgs mechanism With Quantum Untangling, any reader with a good grasp of and an above-average interest in mathematics at advanced high-school level can follow the presentation and acquaint themselves with the fundamental and advanced topics of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, making it a helpful resource for many different students.

This accessible reference presents the evolution of concepts of time and methods of time keeping, for historians, scientists, engineers, and educators. The second edition has been updated throughout to describe twentieth- and twenty-first-century advances, progress in devices, time and cosmology, the redefinition of SI units, and the future of UTC.