"the Magnetic Fields"

The Magnetic Fields' "50 Song Memoir" is the five-disc set chronicles the 50 years of songwriter Stephin Merritt's life with one song per year. On this release, in addition to his vocals on all 50 songs, Merritt plays more than 100 instruments, ranging from ukulele to piano to drum machine to abacus. The album was ranked on MetaCritic-com under the number 5 in "Best Album of 2017", and # 60 in "Most Discussed Album of 2017".

A series of personal and historical encounters with surrealism from one of its foremost practitioners in the United States.

The Magnetic Fields’ Quickies album comprises of twenty-eight new short songs by Stephin Merritt, ranging in length from thirteen seconds to two minutes and thirty-five seconds, performed by Merritt and band members Sam Davol, Claudia Gonson, Shirley Simms, and John Woo, along with longtime friends and collaborators Chris Ewen, Daniel Handler, and Pinky Weitzman.

Obscurities is a 2011 compilation by Stephin Merritt, featuring some of his solo work and tracks with The Magnetic Fields, plus other side projects. This was released by Merge.

Nonesuch Records releases the Magnetic Fields’ 50 Song Memoir on March 3 March 10, 2017. The five-CD / five-LP set chronicles the 50 years of songwriter Stephin Merritt’s life with one song per year; it was produced by Stephin Merritt with additional production by Thomas Bartlett and Charles Newman. On tour, the Magnetic Fields perform the 50 Song Memoir over two nights per city, beginning tomorrow and Saturday, November 18 and 19, at MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA, and continuing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) on December 2 and 3.

This volume extends the ISSI series on magnetic fields in the Universe into the domain of what are by far the strongest fields in the Universe, and stronger than any field that could be produced on Earth. The chapters describe the magnetic fields in non-degenerate strongly magnetized stars, degenerate stars (such as white dwarfs and neutron stars), exotic members called magnetars, and in their environments, as well as magnetic fields in the environments of black holes. These strong fields have a profound effect on the behavior of matter, visible in particular in highly variable processes like radiation in all known wavelengths, including Gamma-Ray bursts. The generation and structure of such strong magnetic fields and effects on the environment are also described.

Magnetism is one of the basic properties of matter. Mankind has trav­ elled a long road in discovering and utilizing magnetism, and in this respect the ancient Chinese people have made outstanding contribu­ tions. In the book 'Lu's Spring and Autumn', written near the end of the Warring States Period, i. e. in the third century B. C. , there is a statement on the "attraction of iron by lodestones". So at that time it was known that magnets can attract ferromagnetic material. At the be­ ginning ofthe first century A. D. , viz. in the early years ofthe East Hang Dynasty, the famous scholar Wang Chong wrote in his masterpiece 'Len Hen' that the handle of a magnetic dipper pointed to the south. It was thus discovered at the time that magnets can point to the poles of the geomagnetic field. At the beginning of the twelfth century, during the reign of Emperor Hui of the Sung Dynasty, in the two books written by Zhu Yo and Xu Jin, respectively, there are descriptions of the com­ pass used in navigation. This tells us that the application of compasses was rather widespread at that time. The distinguished scientist Sen Go (1031-1085) discovered the declination of the terrestrial magnetic field. This is four hundred and more years earlier than its discovery by Christopher Columbus in 1492 during his voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. Such facts as these manifest the important contributions of ancient China to global civilization.