6.8: Potential, Kinetic, Free, and Activation Energy - Activation Energy
- Discuss the concept of activation energy
Many chemical reactions, and almost all biochemical reactions do not occur spontaneously and must have an initial input of energy (called the activation energy) to get started. Activation energy must be considered when analyzing both endergonic and exergonic reactions. Exergonic reactions have a net release of energy, but they still require a small amount of energy input before they can proceed with their energy-releasing steps. This small amount of energy input necessary for all chemical reactions to occur is called the activation energy (or free energy of activation) and is abbreviated E A .
Activation Energy in Chemical Reactions
Why would an energy-releasing, negative ∆G reaction actually require some energy to proceed? The reason lies in the steps that take place during a chemical reaction. During chemical reactions, certain chemical bonds are broken and new ones are formed. For example, when a glucose molecule is broken down, bonds between the carbon atoms of the molecule are broken. Since these are energy-storing bonds, they release energy when broken. However, to get them into a state that allows the bonds to break, the molecule must be somewhat contorted. A small energy input is required to achieve this contorted state, which is called the transition state : it is a high-energy, unstable state. For this reason, reactant molecules don’t last long in their transition state, but very quickly proceed to the next steps of the chemical reaction.
Cells will at times couple an exergonic reaction (ΔG<0) with endergonic reactions (ΔG>0), allowing them to proceed. This spontaneous shift from one reaction to another is called energy coupling. The free energy released from the exergonic reaction is absorbed by the
endergonic reaction. One example of energy coupling using ATP involves a transmembrane ion pump that is extremely important for cellular function.
Free Energy Diagrams
Free energy diagrams illustrate the energy profiles for a given reaction. Whether the reaction is exergonic (ΔG<0) or endergonic (ΔG>0) determines whether the products in the diagram will exist at a lower or higher energy state than the reactants. However, the measure of the activation energy is independent of the reaction’s ΔG. In other words, at a given temperature, the activation energy depends on the nature of the chemical transformation that takes place, but not on the relative energy state of the reactants and products.
Although the image above discusses the concept of activation energy within the context of the exergonic forward reaction, the same principles apply to the reverse reaction, which must be endergonic. Notice that the activation energy for the reverse reaction is larger than for the forward reaction.
Heat Energy
The source of the activation energy needed to push reactions forward is typically heat energy from the surroundings. Heat energy (the total bond energy of reactants or products in a chemical reaction) speeds up the motion of molecules, increasing the frequency and force with which they collide. It also moves atoms and bonds within the molecule slightly, helping them reach their transition state. For this reason, heating up a system will cause chemical reactants within that system to react more frequently. Increasing the pressure on a system has the same effect. Once reactants have absorbed enough heat energy from their surroundings to reach the transition state, the reaction will proceed.
The activation energy of a particular reaction determines the rate at which it will proceed. The higher the activation energy, the slower the chemical reaction will be. The example of iron rusting illustrates an inherently slow reaction. This reaction occurs slowly over time because of its high E A . Additionally, the burning of many fuels, which is strongly exergonic, will take place at a negligible rate unless their activation energy is overcome by sufficient heat from a spark. Once they begin to burn, however, the chemical reactions release enough heat to continue the burning process, supplying the activation energy for surrounding fuel molecules.
Like these reactions outside of cells, the activation energy for most cellular reactions is too high for heat energy to overcome at efficient rates. In other words, in order for important cellular reactions to occur at significant rates (number of reactions per unit time), their activation energies must be lowered; this is referred to as catalysis. This is a very good thing as far as living cells are concerned. Important macromolecules, such as proteins, DNA, and RNA, store considerable energy, and their breakdown is exergonic. If cellular temperatures alone provided enough heat energy for these exergonic reactions to overcome their activation barriers, the essential components of a cell would disintegrate.
The Arrhenius Equation
The Arrhenius equations relates the rate of a chemical reaction to the magnitude of the activation energy:
k=Ae E a /RT
where
- k is the reaction rate coefficient or constant
- A is the frequency factor of the reaction. It is determined experimentally.
- R is the Universal Gas constant
- T is the temperature in Kelvin
Contributions and Attributions
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- endergonic reaction. Provided by : Wikipedia. Located at : en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/endergonic%20reaction . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
- exergonic reaction. Provided by : Wikipedia. Located at : en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/exergonic%20reaction . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
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- first law of thermodynamics. Provided by : Wikipedia. Located at : en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/first%2...thermodynamics . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
- work. Provided by : Wiktionary. Located at : en.wiktionary.org/wiki/work . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
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- System Boundary. Provided by : WikiPedia. Located at : commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...m_boundary.svg . License : CC BY: Attribution
- File:Soyuz TMA-05M rocket launches from Baikonur 4.jpg. Provided by : File:Soyuz TMA-05M rocket launches from Baikonur 4.jpg. Located at : commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...Baikonur_4.jpg . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
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- second law of thermodynamics. Provided by : Wikipedia. Located at : en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/second%...thermodynamics . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
- entropy. Provided by : Wikipedia. Located at : en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/entropy . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
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- catalysis. Provided by : Wiktionary. Located at : en.wiktionary.org/wiki/catalysis . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
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- activation energy. Provided by : Wiktionary. Located at : en.wiktionary.org/wiki/activation_energy . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
- transition state. Provided by : Wiktionary. Located at : en.wiktionary.org/wiki/transition_state . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
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- System Boundary. Provided by : WikiPedia. Located at : commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:System_boundary.svg . License : CC BY: Attribution
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Key Points
- Reactions require an input of energy to initiate the reaction; this is called the activation energy (E A ).
- Activation energy is the amount of energy required to reach the transition state.
- The source of the activation energy needed to push reactions forward is typically heat energy from the surroundings.
- For cellular reactions to occur fast enough over short time scales, their activation energies are lowered by molecules called catalysts.
- Enzymes are catalysts.
Key Terms
- activation energy : The minimum energy required for a reaction to occur.
- catalysis : The increase in the rate of a chemical reaction by lowering its activation energy.
- transition state : An intermediate state during a chemical reaction that has a higher energy than the reactants or the products.


6: Social and Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood
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- 6.1: Temperament
- You may have noticed that some infants seemed to be in a better mood than others and that some were more sensitive to noise or more easily distracted than others. These differences may be attributed to temperament. Temperament is the innate characteristics of the infant, including mood, activity level, and emotional reactivity, noticeable soon after birth.
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- 6.2: Personality
- Temperament does not change dramatically as we grow up, but we may learn how to work around and manage our temperamental qualities. Temperament may be one of the things about us that stays the same throughout development. In contrast, personality, defined as an individual’s consistent pattern of feeling, thinking, and behaving, is the result of the continuous interplay between biological disposition and experience.
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- 6.3: Infant Emotions
- At birth, infants exhibit two emotional responses: attraction and withdrawal. They show attraction to pleasant situations that bring comfort, stimulation, and pleasure, and they withdraw from unpleasant stimulation such as bitter flavors or physical discomfort. At around two months, infants exhibit social engagement in the form of social smiling as they respond with smiles to those who engage their positive attention (Lavelli & Fogel, 2005).
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- 6.5: Forming Attachments
- Attachment is the close bond with a caregiver from which the infant derives a sense of security. The formation of attachments in infancy has been the subject of considerable research as attachments have been viewed as foundations for future relationships. Additionally, attachments form the basis for confidence and curiosity as toddlers, and as important influences on self-concept.
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- 6.6: Child Care
- Child care involves supervising a child or children, usually from infancy to age thirteen, and typically refers to work done by somebody outside the child's immediate family. Child care is a broad topic covering a wide spectrum of contexts, activities, social and cultural conventions, and institutions. The majority of child care institutions that are available require that child care providers have extensive training in first aid and are CPR certified.
Thumbnail: www.pexels.com/photo/baby-touching-woman-s-face-1257110/


3: Stress Management
Stress is a feeling you get when faced with a challenge. In small doses, stress can be good for you because it makes you more alert and gives you a burst of energy. For instance, if you start to cross the street and see a car about to run you over, that jolt you feel helps you to jump out of the way before you get hit. But feeling stressed for a long time can take a toll on your mental and physical health. Even though it may seem hard to find ways to de-stress with all the things you have to do, it's important to find those ways. Your health depends on it.
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- 3.8: Burnout and Stress Relateed Illness
- Burnout syndrome is considered an important work-related illness in welfare societies. It was through observations by German psychologist Herbert Freudenberger inside a detoxification clinic in the mid-1960s that the first scientific descriptions came to light of staff affected by this disorder. It was only in the 1980s that evaluation criteria for the syndrome became available, through the design of a standard measurement instrument, the Maslach Burnout Inventory or MBI.
Thumbnail: A man expressing stress with both hands on his head. (CC BY-SA 4.0; Phee - Pixabay)


10.4: Challenges in Citing Sources
Running Out of Time
When you are a student taking many classes simultaneously and facing many deadlines, it may be hard to devote the time needed to do good scholarship and accurately representing the sources you have used. Research takes time. The sooner you can start and the more time you can devote to it, the better your work will be. From the beginning, be sure to include in your notes where you found the information you could quote, paraphrase, and summarize in your final product.
Having to Use Different Styles
Different disciplines require that your citations be in different styles: which publication information is included and in what order. So your citations for different courses could look different, particularly for courses outside your major.
Not Really Understanding the Material You’re Using
If you are working in a new field or subject area, you might have difficulty understanding the information from other scholars, thus making it difficult to know how to paraphrase or summarize that work properly.
Shifting Cultural Expectations of Citation
Because of new technologies that make finding, using, and sharing information easier, many of our cultural expectations around how to do that are changing as well. For example, blog posts often “reference” other articles or works by simply linking to them. It makes it easy for the reader to see where the author’s ideas have come from and to view the source very quickly. But in these more informal writings, blog authors do not have a list of citations. The links do the work for them. This is a great strategy for online digital mediums, but this method fails over time when links break and there are no hints (like an author, title, and date) to know how else to find the reference, which might have moved.
This example of cultural change of expectations in the non-academic world might make it seem that there has been a change in academic scholarship as well, or might make people new to academic scholarship even less familiar with citation. But in fact, the expectations around citing sources in academic research remain formal.


7.1: INTRODUCTION
So far, we have given very little consideration to architecture, yet it is one of the most culturally significant forms of art. Often, with structures that were built for group activities, they reflect the culture, its values, style, purposes, and preferences in the time and place more broadly and deeply than settings where individual choices might predominate. And decoration of such architectural settings, even if individual needs and ideals have been expressed through painting or sculptural themes, generally reflects the greater permanence of a structure expected to serve the group’s purposes and needs.
The earliest buildings were likely designed to shelter a family or small group that lived together. Soon group needs came into play, and the community may have wanted to provide for joint activities of several types such as ritual/worship, group protection, government, markets, and other commercial needs. The types expanded as the societies grew, diversified, specialized, and sought ways to meet needs for both individuals and communities. The specific purposes led to diverse designs, and cultural values influenced both practical and stylistic choices. We will survey a small sample of landmark types from across the centuries from several different viewpoints, depending upon the significance of features for the individual examples. Our focus will sometimes be on the plan or layout of the structure, materials used in its creation, or spatial considerations as they relate to purposes and use. At other times, we will look at how the building is situated within a community, or how patrons, owners, and community members influence its construction and use. We will examine in greater detail the ritual uses, meanings, and significance of architectural settings and their decoration, in Chapter 10 Art and Ritual Life: Symbolism of Space and Ritual Objects.
Before we start our discussion, you should familiarize yourself with the basics of building, that is, how you might create walls and place openings in the walls while supporting the parts of the structure above. The most basic method is the post-and-lintel design in which two upright beams support a horizontal one to create a rectangular opening. (Figure 7.1) Before long, builders also devised a variety of arches , a curved or pointed structure spanning an opening and supporting the weight above, and then created further modifications of these techniques to develop barrel vaults , a series of circular arches that form a ceiling or roof, and domes , spherical-shaped ceiling or roof. (Diagram of Roman Arches: classconnection.s3.amazonaws.../jpg/untitled- 13EF5EB39821CEF88AF.jpg; Domes: 2.bp.blogspot.com/-jbiaW24DTZI/TVxCBDxxoTI/ AAAAAAAAACk/VytZNRg0UK0/s1600/40-typology-dome.jpg) They also made variations that served decorative purposes. Over time, these have been imaginatively used for a tremendous variety of structural and decorative purposes, and you should keep them in mind as we investigate an array of buildings that reflect cultural concerns and human needs of all sorts. We will classify these buildings into several groups, although noting that a great number of them were multi- purpose: residential/housing, community needs, commercial buildings and centers, governmental structures, and those designed for worship.


8.1: Introduction
Acknowledgment: This appendix, written with assistance from Cédric J. Demeure and Peter Massey, was inspired by the MATLAB user's manual from The MATHWORKS, Inc. The MATLAB Primer , available through the MATLAB User's Group, is a useful learning aid for teachers and students. To join the MATLAB User's Group, send your request via E-mail to matlab-users<EMAIL_ADDRESS>.
Introduction
MATLAB stands for “Matrix Laboratory.” It is a computing environment specifically designed for matrix computations. The program is ideally suited to circuit analysis, signal processing, filter design, control system analysis, and much more. Beyond that, its versatility with complex numbers and graphics makes it an attractive choice for many other programming tasks. MATLAB can be thought of as a programming language like PASCAL, FORTRAN, C, or BASIC. Like most versions of BASIC, MATLAB can be used in an interactive mode wherein statements are executed immediately as they are typed. Alternatively, a program can be written in advance and saved to a disc file using an editor and then executed in MATLAB. You will find both modes of operation useful.


17.5: Genomics and Proteomics
Skills to Develop
- Explain systems biology
- Describe a proteome
- Define protein signature
Proteins are the final products of genes, which help perform the function encoded by the gene. Proteins are composed of amino acids and play important roles in the cell. All enzymes (except ribozymes) are proteins that act as catalysts to affect the rate of reactions. Proteins are also regulatory molecules, and some are hormones. Transport proteins, such as hemoglobin, help transport oxygen to various organs. Antibodies that defend against foreign particles are also proteins. In the diseased state, protein function can be impaired because of changes at the genetic level or because of direct impact on a specific protein.
A proteome is the entire set of proteins produced by a cell type. Proteomes can be studied using the knowledge of genomes because genes code for mRNAs, and the mRNAs encode proteins. Although mRNA analysis is a step in the right direction, not all mRNAs are translated into proteins. The study of the function of proteomes is called proteomics . Proteomics complements genomics and is useful when scientists want to test their hypotheses that were based on genes. Even though all cells of a multicellular organism have the same set of genes, the set of proteins produced in different tissues is different and dependent on gene expression. Thus, the genome is constant, but the proteome varies and is dynamic within an organism. In addition, RNAs can be alternately spliced (cut and pasted to create novel combinations and novel proteins) and many proteins are modified after translation by processes such as proteolytic cleavage, phosphorylation, glycosylation, and ubiquitination. There are also protein-protein interactions, which complicate the study of proteomes. Although the genome provides a blueprint, the final architecture depends on several factors that can change the progression of events that generate the proteome.
Metabolomics is related to genomics and proteomics. Metabolomics involves the study of small molecule metabolites found in an organism. The metabolome is the complete set of metabolites that are related to the genetic makeup of an organism. Metabolomics offers an opportunity to compare genetic makeup and physical characteristics, as well as genetic makeup and environmental factors. The goal of metabolome research is to identify, quantify, and catalogue all of the metabolites that are found in the tissues and fluids of living organisms.
Basic Techniques in Protein Analysis
The ultimate goal of proteomics is to identify or compare the proteins expressed from a given genome under specific conditions, study the interactions between the proteins, and use the information to predict cell behavior or develop drug targets. Just as the genome is analyzed using the basic technique of DNA sequencing, proteomics requires techniques for protein analysis. The basic technique for protein analysis, analogous to DNA sequencing, is mass spectrometry. Mass spectrometry is used to identify and determine the characteristics of a molecule. Advances in spectrometry have allowed researchers to analyze very small samples of protein. X-ray crystallography, for example, enables scientists to determine the three-dimensional structure of a protein crystal at atomic resolution. Another protein imaging technique, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), uses the magnetic properties of atoms to determine the three-dimensional structure of proteins in aqueous solution. Protein microarrays have also been used to study interactions between proteins. Large-scale adaptations of the basic two-hybrid screen (Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\)) have provided the basis for protein microarrays. Computer software is used to analyze the vast amount of data generated for proteomic analysis.
Genomic- and proteomic-scale analyses are part of systems biology. Systems biology is the study of whole biological systems (genomes and proteomes) based on interactions within the system. The European Bioinformatics Institute and the Human Proteome Organization (HUPO) are developing and establishing effective tools to sort through the enormous pile of systems biology data. Because proteins are the direct products of genes and reflect activity at the genomic level, it is natural to use proteomes to compare the protein profiles of different cells to identify proteins and genes involved in disease processes. Most pharmaceutical drug trials target proteins. Information obtained from proteomics is being used to identify novel drugs and understand their mechanisms of action.
The challenge of techniques used for proteomic analyses is the difficulty in detecting small quantities of proteins. Although mass spectrometry is good for detecting small amounts of proteins, variations in protein expression in diseased states can be difficult to discern. Proteins are naturally unstable molecules, which makes proteomic analysis much more difficult than genomic analysis.
Cancer Proteomics
Genomes and proteomes of patients suffering from specific diseases are being studied to understand the genetic basis of the disease. The most prominent disease being studied with proteomic approaches is cancer. Proteomic approaches are being used to improve screening and early detection of cancer; this is achieved by identifying proteins whose expression is affected by the disease process. An individual protein is called a biomarker , whereas a set of proteins with altered expression levels is called a protein signature . For a biomarker or protein signature to be useful as a candidate for early screening and detection of a cancer, it must be secreted in body fluids, such as sweat, blood, or urine, such that large-scale screenings can be performed in a non-invasive fashion. The current problem with using biomarkers for the early detection of cancer is the high rate of false-negative results. A false negative is an incorrect test result that should have been positive. In other words, many cases of cancer go undetected, which makes biomarkers unreliable. Some examples of protein biomarkers used in cancer detection are CA-125 for ovarian cancer and PSA for prostate cancer. Protein signatures may be more reliable than biomarkers to detect cancer cells. Proteomics is also being used to develop individualized treatment plans, which involves the prediction of whether or not an individual will respond to specific drugs and the side effects that the individual may experience. Proteomics is also being used to predict the possibility of disease recurrence.
The National Cancer Institute has developed programs to improve the detection and treatment of cancer. The Clinical Proteomic Technologies for Cancer and the Early Detection Research Network are efforts to identify protein signatures specific to different types of cancers. The Biomedical Proteomics Program is designed to identify protein signatures and design effective therapies for cancer patients.
Summary
Proteomics is the study of the entire set of proteins expressed by a given type of cell under certain environmental conditions. In a multicellular organism, different cell types will have different proteomes, and these will vary with changes in the environment. Unlike a genome, a proteome is dynamic and in constant flux, which makes it both more complicated and more useful than the knowledge of genomes alone.
Proteomics approaches rely on protein analysis; these techniques are constantly being upgraded. Proteomics has been used to study different types of cancer. Different biomarkers and protein signatures are being used to analyze each type of cancer. The future goal is to have a personalized treatment plan for each individual.
Glossary
- biomarker
- individual protein that is uniquely produced in a diseased state
- false negative
- incorrect test result that should have been positive
- metabolome
- complete set of metabolites which are related to the genetic makeup of an organism
- metabolomics
- study of small molecule metabolites found in an organism
- protein signature
- set of uniquely expressed proteins in the diseased state
- proteome
- entire set of proteins produced by a cell type
- proteomics
- study of the function of proteomes
- systems biology
- study of whole biological systems (genomes and proteomes) based on interactions within the system


5.1: Introduction
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“Never in the history of the world was society in so terrific flux as it is right now,” Jack London wrote in The Iron Heel , his 1908 dystopian novel in which a corporate oligarchy comes to rule the United States. He wrote, “The swift changes in our industrial system are causing equally swift changes in our religious, political, and social structures. An unseen and fearful revolution is taking place in the fiber and structure of society. One can only dimly feel these things, but they are in the air, now, today.” 1
The many problems associated with the Gilded Age—the rise of unprecedented fortunes and unprecedented poverty, controversies over imperialism, urban squalor, a near-war between capital and labor, loosening social mores, unsanitary food production, the onrush of foreign immigration, environmental destruction, and the outbreak of political radicalism—confronted Americans. Terrible forces seemed out of control and the nation seemed imperiled. Farmers and workers had been waging political war against capitalists and political conservatives for decades, but then, slowly, toward the end of the nineteenth century a new generation of middle-class Americans interjected themselves into public life and advocated new reforms to tame the runaway world of the Gilded Age.
Widespread dissatisfaction with new trends in American society spurred the Progressive Era, named for the various progressive movements that attracted various constituencies around various reforms. Americans had many different ideas about how the country’s development should be managed and whose interests required the greatest protection. Reformers sought to clean up politics; black Americans continued their long struggle for civil rights; women demanded the vote with greater intensity while also demanding a more equal role in society at large; and workers demanded higher wages, safer workplaces, and the union recognition that would guarantee these rights. Whatever their goals, reform became the word of the age, and the sum of their efforts, whatever their ultimate impact or original intentions, gave the era its name.


3: What is a Family
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In this chapter you will:
It is often said that humans are social creatures. We make friends, live in communities, and connect to acquaintances through shared interests. In recent times, social media has become a new way for people to connect with childhood peers, friends of friends, and even strangers. Perhaps nothing is more central to the social world than the concept of family. Our families represent our earliest relationships and—often—our most enduring ones. In this chapter, you will investigate the following topics as they inform our professional work with families and culture in early childhood settings:


5: The Peripheral Devices
Learning Objectives
At the end of the lesson the learners should be able to;-
- Define peripheral devices
- Understand the meaning of digitization, coding-decoding and compression
- understand how to convert analog to digital data
This unit introduces peripheral device which are connected to the computer. It mainly deals on what needs to be done to the data that flows between the processor and the Peripheral devices The peripherals include computer mouse, keyboard, image scanners, tape drives, microphones, loudspeakers, webcams, and digital cameras
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- 5.4: Unit 5 Summary
- This unit introduced the learner to the peripheral device that can be connected to the computer. It dealt on the conversions of analog to digital data. the different wave forms representing conversions of the analog to digital data were also introduced. Also the multimedia data and what needs to be done for it to be transmitted across networks. The peripherals include computer mouse, keyboard, image scanners, tape drives, microphones, loudspeakers, webcams, and digital cameras.


4.1: Tools for Creativity and Innovation
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Describe popular, well-supported, creative problem-solving methods
- Understand which innovation or problem-solving methods apply best in different settings
- Know where to look for emerging innovation practices, research, and tools
Creativity, innovation, and invention are key concepts for your entrepreneurial journey. Fostering creativity and innovation will add essential tools to your entrepreneurial toolkit. In this chapter, first you’ll learn about a few practical tools that can assist you in your efforts to create and innovate. Then, we’ll define and distinguish creativity, innovation, and invention, and note the differences between pioneering and incremental innovation. Finally, we’ll cover models and processes for developing creativity, innovation, and inventiveness. The science, study, and practice of creativity and design thinking are constantly evolving. Staying on top of well-documented, successful approaches can give you a competitive advantage and may remind you that entrepreneurship can be fun, exciting, and refreshing, as long as you keep your creative spirit alive and in constant motion.
Creative Problem-Solving Methods
Creative thinking can take various forms ( Figure 4.2 ). This section focuses on a few creative thinking exercises that have proven useful for entrepreneurs. After discussing ideation practices that you can try, we conclude with a discussion of an in-depth innovation exercise that can help you develop a habit of turning creative ideas into innovative products and services. In this section, outcomes are vital.
Three ideation practices are discussed here. Several others are offered in links at the end of this section. The first ideation practice comes from Stanford’s Design School. 2 The objective is to generate as many ideas as possible and start to develop some of those ideas. This practice is the quintessential design thinking practice, or human-centric design thinking exercise, and it consists of five parts: accessing and expressing empathy, defining the problem, ideating solutions (brainstorming), prototyping, and testing ( Figure 4.3 ). Empathy is the human ability to feel what other humans are feeling, which in the context of creativity, innovation, and invention is essential to beginning a process of human-centric design. Practicing empathy enables us to relate to people and see the problem through the eyes and feelings of those who experience it. By expressing empathy, you can begin to understand many facets of a problem and start to think about all of the forces you will need to bring to bear on it. From empathy comes the ability to proceed to the second step, defining the problem. Defining the problem must be based on honest, rational, and emotional observation for human-centric design to work. Third in the process is brainstorming solutions. The other two ideation exercises or practices in this section delve more deeply into brainstorming (also discussed in Problem Solving and Need Recognition Techniques ), what it means, and how you can brainstorm creatively beyond the basic whiteboard scribbling in almost every organization. Designing for other people means building a prototype—the fourth step—and to test it. Once you apply this process to developing a product or service, you need to return to the empathetic mindset to examine whether you have reached a viable solution and, thus, an opportunity.
Watch this video on human-centered design for more information, including an explanation of the phases involved.
To delve more deeply into ideation as a practice, we introduce here the Six Thinking Hats method ( Figure 4.4 ). 3 There are different versions of this ideation game, but all of them are quite useful for encouraging thought by limiting the mindset of those involved in the game. Being encouraged to embody one mode of thinking frees you from considering other aspects of a problem that can limit creativity when you are looking for a solution. The six hats are:
- White Hat: acts as information gatherer by conducting research and bringing quantitative analysis to the discussion; sticks to the facts
- Red Hat: brings raw emotion to the mix and offers sensibilities without having to justify them
- Black Hat: employs logic and caution; warns participants about institutional limitations; also known as the “devil’s advocate”
- Yellow Hat: brings the “logical positive” of optimism to the group; encourages solving small and large problems
- Green Hat: thinks creatively; introduces change and provokes other members when needed; new ideas are the purview of the Green Hat
- Blue Hat: maintains the broader structure of the discussion and may set the terms by which progress will be judged; makes sure the other hats play by the rules, or stay in their respective lanes, so to speak
You can apply the Six Thinking Hats exercise to force structure on a discussion where, without it, several members of the group might try to wear several hats each. This game is not always easy to implement. If members cannot follow the rules, the process breaks down. When it works best, the Blue Hat maintains control and keeps the practice moving quickly. What you and your group should experience is a peculiar freedom arising from the imposition of limitations. By being responsible for only one mode of thinking, each participant can fully advocate for that point of view and can think deeply about that particular aspect of the solution. Thus, the group can be deeply creative, deeply logical, deeply optimistic, and deeply critical. This practice is meant to move entire groups past surface-level solutions. If you practice this exercise well, the challenges of implementing it are well worth the effort. It gives you the opportunity to vet ideas thoroughly while keeping many personality clashes at bay. If the participants stay in character, they can be accused only of acting in the best interests of their hat.
Your instructor may have your group members try different hats in different ideation exercises so you all can more fully develop each mindset. 4 This exercise forces you out of your most comfortable modes of thinking. You and your classmates can recognize in each other skills that you may not have realized you possess.
The third ideation practice is quite simple. If stagnant thinking has begun to dominate an ongoing discussion, it can be helpful to inject an ideation framework. This is the “statement starters” method. 5 Ask, “How might we ________?” or “What if we ________?” in order to open up new possibilities when you seem to have reached the limits of creativity. This method is more than simply asking “Why not?” because it seeks to uncover how a problem might be solved. For entrepreneurs, the simplest form of framing a problem in the form of a question can be eye opening. It assumes open possibilities, invites participation, and demands focus. Statement starters assume that, at least, there might be a solution to every problem. Ideation is about starting down new paths. This mode of thought applies to social problems as well as consumer pain points (discussed later). Creating a list of statement starters can help entrepreneurs examine different possibilities by simply adopting different points of view when asking questions. For example, the question, “How might we keep rivers clean?” is similar to the question, “How might we prevent animal waste runoff from entering our city’s waterways?” but the implications of each question are different for different stakeholders. Recall that stakeholders are individuals who have a vital interest in the business or organization. Statement starters almost always lead to a discussion of stakeholders and how they might be involved in finding solutions, offering support, and perhaps one day purchasing or contributing to dynamic, disruptive inventions or changes in social practice.
Are you curious about ways to improve your ability to think creatively? Consider trying out some of the creative thinking exercises provided at this site.
Matching Innovation Methods to Circumstances
Searching for innovation methods will often reveal many of the same, or similar, creativity exercises as we’ve just discussed. To go beyond ideation exercises, we will conclude with a foundation of thinking that can help when you are tackling all sorts of innovation problems. Simply put, open innovation involves searching for and finding solutions outside of the organizational structure. Open innovation is somewhat difficult to pin down. The educator and author Henry Chesbrough was one of the first to define it: “Open innovation is ‘the use of purposive inflows and outflows of knowledge to accelerate internal innovation, and expand the markets for external use of innovation, respectively.’” 6 In other words, firms built on a structure of open innovation look beyond their own research and development capabilities to solve problems. This outlook can guide all sorts of product and service development processes. Open innovation models also allow innovations to be shared widely so that they can seed other innovations outside the original firm or institution.
Open innovation takes an optimistic view of sharing information and ideas across a society connected by instantaneous communication networks. It is also a shift from the classic research and development model. In a sense, you allow others to solve problems in your business, startup, or social entrepreneurship project. In this reciprocal world, you are open to the reality that information is difficult to keep under wraps. You may seek patents for your intellectual property, particularly in fixed product or service practice form, but you should expect, or even encourage, the widespread circulation of key elements of your solutions. This makes sense: If, as an entrepreneur or an innovative corporation, you are going to look beyond your own ideation, research, and development capabilities for solutions, you must expect that others will look to your solutions for ideas to borrow.
The open innovation model is far easier to describe in idealistic terms than it is to put into practice without ethical consequences. Unfortunately, industrial and corporate espionage, theft of intellectual property, and lawsuits are commonplace. Nevertheless, inspiration in innovation can come from myriad sources when constant streams of information are available to anyone with a high-speed data connection. Open innovation is a simple but essential framework for future innovation and for managing, even possibly guiding, disruption in an industry as discussed previously (i.e., disruptive innovation). Table 4.1 provides some examples of companies using disruptive technology.
| Company | Disruptive technology |
|---|---|
| Amazon |
Speed based delivery
Multiple delivery processes from drones to strategically located fulfillment centers Disruptive technology including processing the customer order before the customer has even finished the purchase, so that the product is already moving toward delivery |
| Uber and Lyft |
Ride sharing versus taxi driving
Apps and Beacon and Amp-color coded alert communication system disrupted the taxi system |
| Bitcoin |
Digital currency not connected to a specific country or monetary standard
Value based on market forces |
| Toyota E-Palette | Remote controlled driverless electric shuttle that brings the service to the customer rather than the customer going to the service |
Another element of the open innovation model is the connection between academic research and practical solutions. Reciprocal influence between academia, which often moves slowly, and leading corporate and entrepreneurial forces, which often focus too narrowly on short-term gains, could offer the balance this rapidly changing world needs. If you can manage to plug into the exchange of ideas between longstanding institutions and disruptive technological innovators, you may be positioned to effect positive change on society and to develop products that are received as useful and elegant, wildly new and creative, and essential to the human experience at the same time.
Staying on Top of Emerging Practices
Consider searching for ideation and innovation practice links using a web browser and comparing those results to what you can find in the academic literature via Google Scholar or other academic databases. To adopt a truly open innovation mindset, it is essential to leave yourself open to all sorts of influences, even if it demands time and much cognitive energy. The financial, social, and personal rewards may be great.


12.1: Introduction to Writing with Sources
Overview
by Amy Minervini
Sometimes you are the best source for your paper, such as when writing a personal narrative. However, the lion’s share of your sources that you are going to be using as part of your evidence and support come from outside entities. These sources could be personal interviews that you conduct or your quoting of experts in their fields–individuals like scientists, doctors, attorneys, psychologists, authors, journalists, speakers, and the list goes on. Ensuring that you capture the words of others or essence of their message accurately and efficaciously is an essential quality of a meticulous writer.
Key Characteristics
Qualities to remember when writing with and using sources:
- There are different rules for quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing
- Attribution is a key component when introducing sources
- Citations, both in-text and on Reference or Works Cited page, are fundamental
- Consider the ways in which sources integrate not only with your ideas and analysis but also with and among other sources
- Critically think about, research, and evaluate the source of information, potential biases, relevance, and context for each piece of evidence you bring in
Essay Types within this Chapter
- Basic Integration: Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing
- Pack Snacks: Use The “Quotation Sandwich”
- Higher-Level Integration: They Say / I Say and Writing as a Conversation
- Signal Phrases
- Using Sources Ethically and Avoiding Plagiarism
- Evaluating Sources Using the SIFT Model
“Overview” by Amy Minervini is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License


42.5: Using Histograms to Answer Statistical Questions
Lesson
Let's draw histograms and use them to answer questions.
Exercise \(\PageIndex{1}\): Which One Doesn't Belong: Questions
Here are four questions about the population of Alaska. Which question does not belong? Be prepared to explain your reasoning.
- In general, at what age do Alaska residents retire?
- At what age can Alaskans vote?
- What is the age difference between the youngest and oldest Alaska residents with a full-time job?
- Which age group is the largest part of the population: 18 years or younger, 19–25 years, 25–34 years, 35–44 years, 45–54 years, 55–64 years, or 65 years or older?
Exercise \(\PageIndex{2}\): Measuring Earthworms
An earthworm farmer set up several containers of a certain species of earthworms so that he could learn about their lengths. The lengths of the earthworms provide information about their ages. The farmer measured the lengths of 25 earthworms in one of the containers. Each length was measured in millimeters.
-
Using a ruler, draw a line segment for each length:
- 20 millimeters
- 40 millimeters
- 60 millimeters
- 80 millimeters
- 100 millimeters
- Here are the lengths, in millimeters, of the 25 earthworms.
\(6\quad 11\quad 18\quad 19\quad 20\quad 23\quad 23\quad 25\quad 25\quad 26\quad 27\quad 27\quad 28\quad 29\quad 32\quad 33\quad 41\quad 42\quad 48\quad 52\quad 54\quad 59\quad 60\quad 77\quad 93\)
Complete the table for the lengths of the 25 earthworms.
| length | frequency |
|---|---|
| \(0\) millimeters to less than \(20\) millimeters | |
| \(20\) millimeters to less than \(40\) millimeters | |
| \(40\) millimeters to less than \(60\) millimeters | |
| \(60\) millimeters to less than \(80\) millimeters | |
| \(80\) millimeters to less than \(100\) millimeters |
- Use the grid and the information in the table to draw a histogram for the worm length data. Be sure to label the axes of your histogram.
- Based on the histogram, what is a typical length for these 25 earthworms? Explain how you know.
- Write 1–2 sentences to describe the spread of the data. Do most of the worms have a length that is close to your estimate of a typical length, or are they very different in length?
Are you ready for more?
Here is another histogram for the earthworm measurement data. In this histogram, the measurements are in different groupings.
- Based on this histogram, what is your estimate of a typical length for the 25 earthworms?
- Compare this histogram with the one you drew. How are the distributions of data summarized in the two histograms the same? How are they different?
- Compare your estimates of a typical earthworm length for the two histograms. Did you reach different conclusions about a typical earthworm length from the two histograms?
Exercise \(\PageIndex{3}\): Tall and Taller Players
Professional basketball players tend to be taller than professional baseball players.
Here are two histograms that show height distributions of 50 male professional baseball players and 50 male professional basketball players.
- Decide which histogram shows the heights of baseball players and which shows the heights of basketball players. Be prepared to explain your reasoning.
- Write 2–3 sentences that describe the distribution of the heights of the basketball players. Comment on the center and spread of the data.
- Write 2–3 sentences that describe the distribution of the heights of the baseball players. Comment on the center and spread of the data.
Summary
Here are the weights, in kilograms, of 30 dogs.
\(10\quad 11\quad 12\quad 12\quad 13\quad 15\quad 16\quad 16\quad 17\quad 18\quad 18\quad 19\quad 20\quad 20\quad 20\quad 21\quad 22\quad 22\quad 22\quad 23\quad 24\quad 24\quad 26\quad 26\quad 28\quad 30\quad 32\quad 32\quad 34\quad 34\)
Before we draw a histogram, let’s consider a couple of questions.
- What are the smallest and largest values in our data set? This gives us an idea of the distance on the number line that our histogram will cover. In this case, the minimum is 10 and the maximum is 34, so our number line needs to extend from 10 to 35 at the very least.
(Remember the convention we use to mark off the number line for a histogram: we include the left boundary of a bar but exclude the right boundary. If 34 is the right boundary of the last bar, it won't be included in that bar, so the number line needs to go a little greater than the maximum value.)
- What group size or bin size seems reasonable here? We could organize the weights into bins of 2 kilograms (10, 12, 14, . . .), 5 kilograms, (10, 15, 20, 25, . . .), 10 kilograms (10, 20, 30, . . .), or any other size. The smaller the bins, the more bars we will have, and vice versa.
Let’s use bins of 5 kilograms for the dog weights. The boundaries of our bins will be: 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35. We stop at 35 because it is greater than the maximum.
Next, we find the frequency for the values in each group. It is helpful to organize the values in a table.
| weights in kilograms | frequency |
|---|---|
| \(10\) to less than \(15\) | \(5\) |
| \(15\) to less than \(20\) | \(7\) |
| \(20\) to less than \(25\) | \(10\) |
| \(25\) to less than \(30\) | \(3\) |
| \(30\) to less than \(35\) | \(5\) |
Now we can draw the histogram.
The histogram allows us to learn more about the dog weight distribution and describe its center and spread.
Glossary Entries
Definition: Center
The center of a set of numerical data is a value in the middle of the distribution. It represents a typical value for the data set.
For example, the center of this distribution of cat weights is between 4.5 and 5 kilograms.
Definition: Distribution
The distribution tells how many times each value occurs in a data set. For example, in the data set blue, blue, green, blue, orange, the distribution is 3 blues, 1 green, and 1 orange.
Here is a dot plot that shows the distribution for the data set 6, 10, 7, 35, 7, 36, 32, 10, 7, 35.
Definition: Frequency
The frequency of a data value is how many times it occurs in the data set.
For example, there were 20 dogs in a park. The table shows the frequency of each color.
| color | frequency |
|---|---|
| white | \(4\) |
| brown | \(7\) |
| black | \(3\) |
| multi-color | \(6\) |
Definition: Histogram
A histogram is a way to represent data on a number line. Data values are grouped by ranges. The height of the bar shows how many data values are in that group.
This histogram shows there were 10 people who earned 2 or 3 tickets. We can't tell how many of them earned 2 tickets or how many earned 3. Each bar includes the left-end value but not the right-end value. (There were 5 people who earned 0 or 1 tickets and 13 people who earned 6 or 7 tickets.)
Definition: Spread
The spread of a set of numerical data tells how far apart the values are.
For example, the dot plots show that the travel times for students in South Africa are more spread out than for New Zealand.
Practice
Exercise \(\PageIndex{4}\)
These two histograms show the number of text messages sent in one week by two groups of 100 students. The first histogram summarizes data from sixth-grade students. The second histogram summarizes data from seventh-grade students.
- Do the two data sets have approximately the same center? If so, explain where the center is located. If not, which one has the greater center?
- Which data set has greater spread? Explain your reasoning.
- Overall, which group of students—sixth- or seventh-grade—sent more text messages?
Exercise \(\PageIndex{5}\)
Forty sixth-grade students ran 1 mile. Here is a histogram that summarizes their times, in minutes. The center of the distribution is approximately 10 minutes.
On the blank axes, draw a second histogram that has:
- a distribution of times for a different group of 40 sixth-grade students.
- a center at 10 minutes.
- less variability than the distribution shown in the first histogram.
Exercise \(\PageIndex{6}\)
Jada has \(d\) dimes. She has more than 30 cents but less than a dollar.
- Write two inequalities that represent how many dimes Jada has.
- Can \(d\) be 10?
- How many possible solutions make both inequalities true? If possible, describe or list the solutions.
(From Unit 7.2.2)
Exercise \(\PageIndex{7}\)
Order these numbers from greatest to least: \(-4, \frac{1}{4}, 0, 4, -3\frac{1}{2}, \frac{7}{4}, -\frac{5}{4}\)
(From Unit 7.1.4)


1.1: Ancient Music behind and in the Bible
In this chapter you will
- explore indications in the Bible that some of its famous stories were passed down orally through song before being written
- see how translation bridges our time and others but also obscures differences
- find out what we know about ancient music before the Bible and what it tells us about music in the Bible
- learn about the different historical and musical contexts of ancient Israel, Second Temple Judaism, and early Christianity
Biblical Music before the Bible
Some of the oldest traditions in the Bible may have been transmitted through music . The story of the exodus was probably passed on in song long before it became a focus of a written tale. Miriam, the sister of Moses, and other women are said to have sung of the event and to have led the people in song ( Exodus 15:20–21 ). Of this, Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso has said, “When the people of Israel crossed the Sea of Reeds to freedom, Miriam took her timbrel and led the women in dance. Because of Miriam and Moses’ Song of the Sea, generations remember the crossing. It forms an important part of the Jewish liturgy. A generation later, when Joshua led the people across the Jordan, another miracle happened. However, no one sang, and so no one remembered.” [1] In turn, Debbie Friedman , a songwriter who had a powerful impact on contemporary synagogue music , wrote a song of her own about Miriam’s song. [2]
In the case of the “Song of Deborah” found in Judges 5 , the situation may be similar to that mentioned in connection with the “Song of Miriam” in Exodus . Some scholars have sought to detect an earlier version lying behind the present one. The words of Deborah’s song are chanted in synagogues annually. It has also been set to music in other ways, including in the original Hebrew as well as in a metrical hymn in English with seventeen verses . [3] The story of Deborah and her song have also been given contemporary gospel and death metal treatments by Christian artists in English. [4] Here is a choral setting of part of the song in Judges (Judges 5:2–3, 10, 12) by American composer Adolphus Hailstork. [5]
Note also the “Song of the Well” in Numbers 21:17–18 , which may be another example of the same kind.
Translating the Bible and Music
When modern speakers of English read the Bible in a translation into their native tongue, this can obscure the enormous gulf in time and space, language and culture, that separates us and our world from that of the biblical authors and the stories they tell us. We hear words like lamp , house , and city and instinctively envisage things we are familiar with. Perhaps bringing music into the picture (with assistance from archaeologists and historical reconstructions) can help jolt us out of this mind-set and alert us to the difference between the objects with which we have direct experience and their ancient counterparts. We may read that David played a harp or encounter a reference to flutes in the Psalms and imagine the instruments we know. Alternatively, we may come across a reference to a lute or lyre and not have a sense of what one is, since it is not widely used in our time and context. When we look into the terms (as we will in the remainder of this chapter), we discover how much even familiar instruments have evolved and how different ancient ones seem to have been. We are made aware of the limits of our individual knowledge as a guide to interpreting the text as well as some instances when even our collective human efforts to investigate leave us uncertain. We are also alerted to aspects of the process of Bible translation that we may not have noticed previously. If translators use a familiar term that denotes a form of an object that differs from the ancient one, the reader understands the translation but ends up with a mental picture different from what the author of the text had in mind. Does this matter? Do you think it would be better if the translator instead used a term that is more accurate but unfamiliar to the reader? What about leaving a term untranslated so that one reads about the kinnor and tof (two Hebrew words for instruments that occur in the Bible)? In some instances, we aren’t even certain what a term meant and therefore cannot hope to translate it accurately with any certainty. The process of translating the Bible and then reading and interpreting that translation can be taken for granted, although if you compare different translations, you will find they at times reflect each of the possible choices I just mentioned. The example of musical instruments, terminology, and the very sounds themselves help us make sense of not only biblical references to music but the process of reading and understanding an ancient text like the Bible more generally.
The Oldest Surviving Music
It is helpful to begin by acknowledging what we do not know and, sadly, can never know. There are no recordings of music from the ancient world. We can never hear it as it sounded. And yet what we do know is surprisingly much. We have images of instruments in engravings and on coins that often provide a sufficiently realistic depiction to allow musicologists to construct replicas. We have some very ancient texts about music . We even have what today would be called “sheet music” or musical notation carved in stone. The “Hurrian Hymn” found at a site known as Ugarit or Ras Shamra in what is today Syria is probably the oldest example . [6] In the same era in which Israel first began to be mentioned as a people in the land of Canaan in ancient sources , their neighbors in the ancient Near East told stories and recorded their melodies using cuneiform , a method of writing used in that time and part of the world to inscribe language on clay. While there are unanswered questions, puzzles, and mysteries, musicologists and scholars of the ancient world can figure out a great many things from these texts . Here is one example, in which Peter Pringle performs a modern rendering of the music that has come down to us in written form using instruments and sounds that correspond at least roughly to those used in that part of the world in ancient times. [7]
If you do not read music, you may be wondering what it means for music to be turned into a text that can be discovered millennia later, understood, and performed. If you want to learn that skill, there are many resources available. This book will never presume that you have a background in music, but over the course of it, you will undoubtedly pick up a number of concepts and skills along the way. If you do know music, you’ll get more out of many things discussed here, but that does not necessarily mean you need to know music before you begin reading. Taking the time to go beyond the book and learn more about music, and/or about the Bible, is worthwhile and will enrich your experience as well as your life more generally. This book does its best to allow you to benefit even if you have no background in the Bible, music, or either, and yet you get much more out of it if you do.
Music in Ancient Israel
Turning specifically to ancient Israel, we have art from places like Megiddo in Israel that depict what are presumably also instruments mentioned in the Bible, such as the lyre . Here is another performance provided by Peter Pringle using an instrument that he built as a replica of one depicted in an inscription on ivory found in an ancient royal palace that archaeologists excavated in Megiddo. [8]
Biblical scholars have long consulted texts from Ugarit as relevant background to the study of the ideas and practices in the Hebrew Scriptures ( what Jews call the Tanakh and Protestants refer to as the Old Testament ). Similar words for sacrifices appear, and gods and goddesses worshipped by the Israelites and their neighbors (for which biblical authors castigate and condemn them) have their stories told in texts from Ugarit. Just as these texts provide evidence of the kinds of stories, beliefs, and religious practices that were around at that time, there is good reason to think that the music of Ugarit and ancient Israel would have been similarly related. The Bible uses many musical terms that remain somewhat obscure to us. Sometimes etymology—that is, looking at the roots of a word—can be enough to allow us to deduce the meaning. In other instances, the same or similar musical terms are used in texts from other ancient cultures, and this provides important clues. For instance, the sistrum mentioned just once in the Bible ( 2 Samuel 6:5 ) apparently refers to an instrument that we know about and actually have surviving examples of from ancient Egypt . A sistrum is a rattle, and it was used in Egypt, especially in religious contexts . There is some uncertainty about the meaning, and thus you may find that other translations offer a different rendering. The NRSV , for example, translates the Hebrew word (which comes from a root meaning “to shake”) as “castanets.” Examples of that instrument have also been found in ancient Egypt . The sharing of musical instruments, as well as terms for them in common, shows us that in the ancient world, just like today, music did not remain within boundaries of people groups, territorial borders, or languages but moved between cultures.
Music in Early Christianity
Thus far you have been reading about ancient Israel, the people and culture that gave rise to Judaism (from the tribe and kingdom of Judah). The texts that came to be the Scriptures of Judaism in turn also became all or part of the Christian Old Testament, depending on which Christian denomination one is referring to. Christianity comes along much later than ancient Israel—more than a millennium, later in fact—during the time of the Roman Empire. Since the first Christians were Jews, they participated in the musical traditions found in Judaism in that era.
A hymn is a religious song, usually one addressed to a deity.
There are texts in the New Testament that may have been the words to songs that early Christians sang. Philippians 2:6–11 is a particularly good example. Colossians 1:15–20 is another. The book of Revelation is full of singing and may have drawn on songs used in churches at that time. There may thus be hymns that are quoted by New Testament authors , although we cannot be certain, and scholars continue to debate this question. At any rate, the texts do not provide clues about what musical accompaniment there may have been if any. We have references to singing but know little about what they sang or how they sang it, although they undoubtedly sang the Psalms, just as Jesus did ( Matthew 26:30 ).
Our earliest Christian music with notation —that is, with the music written down and not only the words—was found on a papyrus at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt . [9] You can read a translation and see pictures of the manuscript online in various places. Here is a modern attempt to record what that text indicates, performed by Atrium Musicae de Madrid . [10]
Music as Illustration
There are references to music and musical instruments in the Bible beyond those associated with the song lyrics in the Psalms or hymn-singing in churches. Jesus mentions playing music for dancing on a flute and singing a dirge ( Matthew 11:17; Luke 7:32 ). First Corinthians includes references to a clashing gong, a clanging cymbal ( 13:1 ), and a trumpet or bugle making an unclear sound ( 14:8 ). In other cases, we sometimes think of things as “songs” even when there is no explicit mention of singing or music (as in the “songs” of Mary and Simeon in Luke’s Gospel, which we discuss later in this book). We won’t have room to cover every possible mention of or intersection with music here. Search for music-related keywords in an online Bible if you want to dig deeper into what the Bible has to say that is potentially relevant.
Exploring Further
Levites, descendants of Levi, had responsibilities in the Temple which included music (see e.g. 1 Chronicles 9:33 ).
There are important questions that we should ask about music behind and in the Bible, which you may want to further investigate. Who made music? Was everyone involved in some way in local communities? Did men and women participate equally in playing instruments and singing? Were there “professionals,” specialists who made music as performers for public entertainment, in a similar manner to the Levites who sang in the temple? ( Temple is another term that misleads many people reading the Bible today, who may envisage a “synagogue” or “church” rather than a place dedicated primarily to animal sacrifice.) Who sang the Psalms in the Bible even before they were written down and became part of the collection we know today? When and where were they sung? Were certain psalms connected with specific holidays and festivals? We will look more at the Psalms separately, and they will get attention more than once in this book, since they are obviously important evidence about music in the Bible as well as texts that have continued to be set to new music ever since.
If you are interested in exploring this topic further, museum exhibits have a lot to offer that is relevant. For instance, those who wish to dig further into this subject may usefully visit an online exhibit at the Penn Museum featuring Mesopotamian musical instruments . An article in Forward describes an exhibit of musical instruments from the Bible in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Potsdam Public Museum in New York has a collection . Visual art from the past, such as paintings and inscriptions on coins , can provide important information about what instruments were probably like in the biblical world as well as how later generations imagined them in light of what they were familiar with.
For Further Reading
Bayer, Bathja. “The Finds That Could Not Be.” Biblical Archaeology Review 8, no. 1 (1982): 20–33.
Burgh, Theodore W. “Music and Musical Instruments in the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel/Palestine.” The Bible and Interpretation. Accessed September 20, 2022. https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/articles/Music .
———. “The Music of Israel during the Iron Age.” In The Cambridge Companion to Jewish Music , edited by Joshua S. Walden, 75–83. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
Cosgrove, Charles H. An Ancient Christian Hymn with Musical Notation: Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1786 ; Text and Commentary . Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2011.
Dumbrill, Richard. “The Truth about Babylonian Music.” Near Eastern Musicology Online 4, no. 6 (August 2018): 91–121. https://nemo-online.org/archives/1669 .
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- Quote provided in personal correspondence with the author, who is very grateful to Rabbi Sasso for her input as well as for her work fostering artistic engagement with the Bible in her Religion, Spirituality, and the Arts program in Indianapolis. ↵
- This performance by Debbie Friedman was recorded on December 9, 2001, at Hynes Convention Center, Boston, Massachusetts. It is shared on a YouTube channel dedicated to Friedman’s memory. ↵
- On metrical settings of Scriptures—in particular, the Psalms—see chapter 4 in this book. ↵
- There are also several songs in Spanish that set the “Song of Deborah and Barak” to music or tell her story. ↵
- “The Song of Deborah” by Adolphus Hailstork is performed here by the Choir of St. Andrew and St. Paul (Montreal, Canada), with Jean-Sébastien Vallée conducting. It is shared on YouTube by the choir. ↵
- The Hurrian civilization was based in Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) and stretched through a significant part of the Near East, including into Canaan (the territory where Israel would come to be located). ↵
- This performance by Peter Pringle features a lute that he himself made. The video is shared on Pringle’s YouTube channel, which includes other examples of reconstructed ancient instruments and performances of ancient music. ↵
- Video from Peter Pringle’s YouTube channel. There is more information on his website . ↵
- On this see further Wendy J. Porter, “The Composer as Biblical Interpreter,” in Borders, Boundaries and the Bible, ed. Martin O’Kane (London: Sheffield Academic, 2002), 126–53. ↵
- Provided to YouTube by the label Harmonia Mundi. Atrium Musicae de Madrid was conducted by Gregorio Paniagua. ↵