Description - Waves Passing in the Night by Lawrence Weschler
For film aficionados, Walter Murch is legendary--arguably the most admired film and sound editor in the world from his work on Apocalypse Now, The Godfather trilogy, and so many others. Outside of the studio, his mind is as wide-ranging as the universe--indeed, his passion, which he has pursued for several decades, is astrophysics, and in particular a long-dismissed theory of how the planets in our universe are arranged, known as the Titius-Bode Theory. Rejected by the scientific community, he has nonetheless made advances even scientists are intrigued by--including a connection between Titius-Bode and Johannes Kepler’s theory of musical harmony in the heavens—and Murch soldiers on in the best tradition of the outsider scientist.
Long-fascinated by Murch’s wide-ranging intellect, acclaimed writer Lawrence Weschler brings his quest alive in its seemingly quixotic, yet still plausible, splendor. "The wholesale rejection of alternative theories has repeatedly held back the progress of vital science," Weschler observes, citing for example German researcher Alfred Wegener, whose early theories about continental drift were ridiculed, only to be accepted fact years later. Theoretical physicist Lee Smolin says "It is controversy that brings science alive,"--and Murch’s quest does that in spades. His fascination with the way the planets are arranged--which Weschler captures in pithy, elegant prose--opens up the whole field of celestial mechanics for general readers, making us ever more aware of the giant and (to us) invisible forces constantly at work in the universe.
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