Judge Gus Parham has it all, a successful career, a loving wife, and now, his crowning achievement - a nomination to serve on the United States Supreme Court. But when an old enemy digs through his past, Gus is rocked by a revelation.

Are you frequentely requesting people to repeat their comments to you? Is the volume button on your telephone turned to the highest notch? Don't enjoy music with low volume?

At age sixteen, James grew-up fast when his father died. He played baseball in high school and received a college scholarship. Concerned about his mother and brothers, he hoped his athletic talent would lead to a financially successful professional baseball career. Then, one day, while playing a pick-up football game, James was seriously injured and diagnosed a quadriplegic. He asked the doctor, How bad is it? The doctor responded, Bad enough. Youll never walk again and possibly not move from the neck down. Thankfully, God placed James within a family that didnt accept such advice. After years of hard work, fortitude, and perseverance, he was able to return to college. After completing his bachelors degree, it took him three years to land a teaching contract. Prospective employers saw the wheelchair not the applicant. As an educator, James received teaching and coaching awards. Confident, he decided to return to college. After completing his doctoral degree in May 2011, James became a motivational speaker encouraging other people to triumph over tragedies. He knows all of this would not have been possible without God in his life, his familys support, and his personal values the desire to succeed in life and overcome adversities.

The major aim of this book is to introduce the ways in which scientists approach and think about a phenomenon -- hearing -- that intersects three quite different disciplines: the physics of sound sources and the propagation of sound through air and other materials, the anatomy and physiology of the transformation of the physical sound into neural activity in the brain, and the psychology of the perception we call hearing. Physics, biology, and psychology each play a role in understanding how and what we hear. The text evolved over the past decade in an attempt to convey something about scientific thinking, as evidenced in the domain of sounds and their perception, to students whose primary focus is not science. It does so using a minimum of mathematics (high school functions such as linear, logarithmic, sine, and power) without compromising scientific integrity. A significant enrichment is the availability of a compact disc (CD) containing over 20 examples of acoustic demonstrations referred to in the book. These demonstrations, which range from echo effects and filtered noise to categorical speech perception and total more than 45 minutes, are invaluable resources for making the text come alive.