Catching the Light: The Entwined History of Light and Mind

by Arthur Zajonc

Book Overview

In 1910, the surgeons Moreau and LePrince wrote about their successful operation on an eight-year-old boy who had been blind since birth because of cataracts. When the boy's eyes were healed they removed the bandages and, waving a hand in front of the child's physically perfect eyes, asked him what he saw. "I don't know," was his only reply. What he saw was only a varying brightness in front of him. However, when allowed to touch the hand as it began...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195095758
• ISBN13: 9780195095753
• Release Date: April 1995
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 0.87 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

EXCELLENT

This book not only provide a full review of the history of the light (or better, of the conception of light in the human mind) but it is exceptionally well written. English is not my first language and I was delighted with learning to read English through this book.

What is Light?

This book is a powerful expose' revealing some of the true qualities of Light. What is Light? True, it is bright, it shines, it energizes all life on Earth, yet what, exactly, is it? Humans not only need the qualities of light from the Sun, but we breathe Light, we absorb Light. We need the Energy produced by the Light in order to live. Readers interested in delving beneath the surface of the visible world will be enthralled by this book. You will finally understand who you are, where you've come from, where you're going. Your soul will revel in this insightful book.

Let there be light! Read this masterpiece.

On the cover of this book, James Gleick (of Chaos fame) calls it a "small gem". Indeed. It shines.Arthur Zajonc has written a contrapuntal study of light and mind. He plays mankind's understanding of one against the other and shows how insights of mind, by mind, illume our notion of light. Zajonc tells how these, in turn, relect back onto our idea of mind. Brilliant.