In this eclectic and entertaining study of the interrelationship between the arts and the sciences, Barrow explains how the landscape of the Universe has influenced the development of philosophy and mythology, and how millions of years of evolutionary history have fashioned our attraction to certain patterns of sound and color.

John D. Barrow is Professor of Astronomy at the University of Sussex. He is the author of several bestselling books, including Pi in the Sky and Theories of Everything.

Tales of the unexpected	p. 1
The impact of evolution	p. 5
A room with a view: matters of perspective	p. 5
The mind-benders: distortions of thought and space	p. 11
The inheritors: adaptation and evolution	p. 19
After Babel: a linguistic digression	p. 24
A sense of reality: the evolution of mental pictures	p. 27
The care and maintenance of a small planet: cosmic environmentalism	p. 31
Gravity's rainbow: the fabric of the world	p. 34
Chronicle of a death foretold: of death and immortality	p. 39
The human factor: light in the darkness	p. 45
Size, life, and landscape	p. 48
A delicate balance: equilibria in the Universe	p. 48
Of mice and men: life on Earth	p. 53
The jagged edge: living fractals	p. 59
War and peace: size and culture	p. 63
Far from the madding crowd: the size of populations	p. 68
Les liaisons dangereuses: complexity, mobility, and cultural evolution	p. 77
The rivals: the evolution of cooperation	p. 87
The secret garden: the art of landscape	p. 91
Figures in a landscape: the dilemma of computer art	p. 102
Midnight's children: a first glimpse of the stars	p. 112
The heavens and the Earth	p. 114
The remains of the day: rhythms of life	p. 114
Empire of the Sun: the reasons for the seasons	p. 117
A handful of dust: the Earth below	p. 122
Pebble in the sky: the Moon above	p. 126
Darkness at noon: eclipses	p. 129
Hamlet's mill: the wandering Pole Star	p. 139
Paper moon: controlling chaotic planets	p. 145
The man who was Thursday: the origins of the week	p. 149
Long day's journey into night: the origin of the constellations	p. 161
Study in scarlet: the sources of colour vision	p. 174
The natural history of noise	p. 186
The club of queer trades: soundscapes	p. 186
Sense and sensibility: a matter of timing	p. 192
Incidental music: a harmless by-product?	p. 194
The glass bead game: the music of the spheres	p. 199
Player piano: hearing by numbers	p. 205
The sound of silence: decomposing music	p. 214
The imitation game: listlessness	p. 218
The sound of music: hearing and listening	p. 220
Adventures of Roderick Random: white noise, pink noise, and black noise	p. 230
All's well that ends well	p. 243
Bibliography	p. 247
Illustration acknowledgements	p. 263
Index	p. 269
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