Physics in the Arts

Physics in the Arts is a concise, 288-page four-color entry in the Complementary Science Series, designed for science enthusiasts and liberal arts students requiring or desiring a well-developed discussion of physical phenomena, particularly with regard to sound and light.

Topics discussed include the nature of sound and sound perception, and the fundamentals of harmony, musical photography, color perception, and color mixing. The materials are covered at a level appropriate for self-study or as a complementary textbook.

A companion website for Instructors is available in Spring 2008.

• Offers an alternative route to science literacy for those interested in the arts, music and photography
• Popular science book with wide readership beyond the classroom at an accessible level
• Material covered at a level appropriate for self-study or as a complementary textbook
• Companion website for Instructors available in Spring 2008

Pupa Gilbert is a Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Physics at the University of Wisconsin – Madison and an amateur surrealist painter. She is a physicist with passionate loves for biology, geoscience, and modern art. She studied at the Sapienza University of Rome, worked as a staff scientist at the Italian National Research Council and at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne until she joined the University of Wisconsin in 1999. Her research focuses on biominerals, including coral skeletons, tooth enamel, nacre, and sea urchin spines. She studies them with spectromicroscopy methods at the Advanced Light Source in Berkeley, where she discovers the complex structures of the biominerals, and their formation mechanisms. She won several awards for her research and teaching, including the UW-Madison Distinguished Teaching Award in 2011, Radcliffe Fellowship 2014-15, and the David A. Shirley Award in 2018. She lives in Madison and Berkeley with her husband Ben.