The process of sublimation is the transformation of a solid substance into a gaseous phase without first traversing through a liquid phase. Typically, when solid matter changes its physical state as it is heated, it first becomes a liquid. Then as more...

The transition of molecules from the solid phase into the vapor (or gas) phase is called sublimation. At temperatures below the freezing point of a substance, the transition between solid and liquid phases (melting) does not generally occur. However,...

Sublime Disorder: Physical Monstrosity in Diderot's Universe. By ANDREW CURRAN. Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation. 2001. xii + 171 pp. 350 F. This carefully argued and convincing account of monstrosity in Diderot shows decisively what a pivotal role it played in the evolution...

THE Sublime and the Pathetic are the two chief nerves of all genuine poesy. What is there transcendently Sublime or Pathetic in POPE? For WIT and SATIRE are transitory and perishable, but NATURE and PASSION are eternal. --Joseph Warton, An Essay on the...

The most striking photograph included in All the Mighty World: The Photographs of Roger Fenton, 1852-1860, an exhibition on display in the Robert Lehman Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is neither the best thing in the British photographer’s oeuvre nor the most beautiful....

One of the great pleasures of writing this column is to be proved wrong. A few years ago, I fretted about the demise of the piano recital. Conservatories were turning out keyboard virtuosos by the truckload, and the woods were full of competition winners who...