Colour is everywhere. From blue skies to red sunsets, from the first flowers in spring to the blazing leaves of autumn. But what is the nature of colour? Scientific books present a variety of mechanical explanations but this approach leaves colour as a whole unexplained. In the nineteenth century, the German poet and scientist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe investigated a wide range of colour phenomena and discovered the underlying principles that govern colour itself. This lavishly illustrated book brings Goethe's pioneering research up to date. Through descriptions of simple observations and ingenious experiments, the reader will discover a series of colour phenomena that includes afterimages, coloured shadows, colour mixing, and prismatic and polarisation colours. Seeing Colour is a thought-provoking read for colour enthusiasts and experts alike, and an accessible route to a new way of seeing colour.

Though best known for his superlative poetry and plays, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) also produced a sizable body of scientific work that focused on such diverse topics as plants, color, clouds, weather, and geology. Goethe's way of science is highly unusual because it seeks to draw together the intuitive awareness of art with the rigorous observation and thinking of science. Written by major scholars and practitioners of Goethean science today, this book considers the philosophical foundations of Goethe's approach and applies the method to the real world of nature, including studies of plants, animals, and the movement of water.

Part I discusses the philosophical foundations of the approach and clarifies its epistemology and methodology; Part II applies the method to the real world of nature; and Part III examines the future of Goethean science and emphasizes its great value for better understanding and caring for the natural environment.

What happens when the Dalai Lama meets with leading physicists and a historian? This book is the carefully edited record of the fascinating discussions at a Mind and Life conference in which five leading physicists and a historian (David Finkelstein, George Greenstein, Piet Hut, Arthur Zajonc, Anton Zeilinger, and Tu Weiming) discussed with the Dalai Lama current thought in theoretical quantum physics, in the context of Buddhist philosophy. A contribution to the science-religion interface, and a useful explanation of our basic understanding of quantum reality, couched at a level that intelligent readers without a deep involvement in science can grasp. In the tradition of other popular books on resonances between modern quantum physics and Zen or Buddhist mystical traditions--notably The Dancing Wu Li Masters and The Tao of Physics, this book gives a clear and useful update of the genuine correspondences between these two rather disparate approaches to understanding the nature of reality.

In Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry, Arthur Zajonc offers an overview of the meditative life, weaving practical instruction together with the guidance and inspiration of the world's great teachers, from Rudolf Steiner to Rumi, and from Goethe to the sages of Asia. Zajonc reminds us that an ethic of humility grounds all practice, and that care of the soul is the basis for sound spiritual reflection and understanding. The author carefully describes each stage of the path and includes many recommended practices. Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry is the fruit of many years of personal practice and teaching. Arthur Zajonc has worked with hundreds of university students and professors, as well as with contemplative groups in the US, Europe, and Australia.

There are many boundaries in consciousness, such as those between waking and sleeping, language and reality, life and death, observer and observed. The boundary between sanity and madness, reality and delusion, is fortunately one that most of us are spared. Alexander Dreier, an author, poet, comedian and student of human consciousness, found himself gradually slipping over that boundary and was diagnosed with Lewy Body dementia, which has much in common with Alzheimer's. This unique collection of fity-two poems explores boundaries in a brilliant and moving way, recording the author's journey over the boundary from one world to another. The book includes an introduction by Arthur Zajonc, the former President of the Mind-Life Institute.

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 to move, he cried out in a voice of triumph, "It's moving!" He could feel it move, but he still needed laboriously to learn to see it move. Light and eyes were not enough to grant him sight. How, then, do we see? What's the difference between seeing and perception? What is light?

From ancient times to the present, from philosophers to quantum physicists, nothing has so perplexed, so fascinated, so captivated the mind as the elusive definition of light. In Catching the Light, Arthur Zajonc takes us on an epic journey into history, tracing how humans have endeavored to understand the phenomenon of light. Blending mythology, religion, science, literature, and painting, Zajonc reveals in poetic detail the human struggle to identify the vital connection between the outer light of nature and the inner light of the human spirit. He explains the curiousness of the Greeks' blue and green "color blindness": Odysseus gazing longingly at the "wine-dark sea"; the use of chloros (green) as the color of honey in Homer's Odessey; and Euripides' use of the color green to describe the hue of tears and blood. He demonstrates the complexity of perception through the work of Paul Cézanne--the artist standing on the bank of a river, painting the same scene over and over again, the motifs multiplying before his eyes. And Zajonc goes on to show how our quest for an understanding of light, as well as the conclusions we draw, reveals as much about the nature of our own psyche as it does about the nature of light itself. For the ancient Egyptians the nature of light was clear--it simply was the gaze of God. In the hands of the ancient Greeks, light had become the luminous inner fire whose ethereal effluence brought sight. In our contemporary world of modern quantum physics, science plays the greatest part in our theories of light's origin--from scientific perspectives such as Sir Isaac Newton's "corpuscular theory of light" and Michael Faraday's "lines of force" to such revolutionary ideas as Max Planck's "discrete motion of a pendulum" (the basis of quantum mechanics), Albert Einstein's "particles of light" and "theory of relativity," and Niels Bohr's "quantum jumps." Yet the metaphysical aspects of the scientific search, Zajonc shows, still loom large. For the physicist Richard Feynman, a quantum particle travels all paths, eventually distilling to one path whose action is least--the most beautiful path of all. Whatever light is, here is where we will find it.

With rare clarity and unmatched lyricism, Zajonc illuminates the profound implications of the relationships between the multifaceted strands of human experience and scientific endeavor. A fascinating search into our deepest scientific mystery, Catching the Light is a brilliant synthesis that will both entertain and inform.

Their meeting captured headlines; the waiting list for tickets was nearly 2000 names long. If you were unable to attend, this book will take you there. Including both the papers given at the conference, and the animated discussion and debate that followed, "The Dalai Lama at MIT" reveals scientists and monks reaching across a cultural divide, to share insights, studies, and enduring questions.

Is there any substance to monks' claims that meditation can provide astonishing memories for words and images? Is there any neuroscientific evidence that meditation will help you pay attention, think better, control and even eliminate negative emotions? Are Buddhists right to make compassion a fundamental human emotion, and Western scientists wrong to have neglected it?

"The Dalai Lama at MIT" shows scientists finding startling support for some Buddhist claims, Buddhists eager to participate in neuroscientific experiments, as well as misunderstandings and laughter. Those in white coats and those in orange robes agree that joining forces could bring new light to the study of human minds.