Philip Ball: 25 books
Serving the Reich
The Struggle for the Soul of Physics under Hitler
Language: English
Release Date: October 20, 2014
After World War II, most scientists in Germany maintained that they had been apolitical or actively resisted the Nazi regime, but the true story is much more complicated. In Serving the Reich, Philip Ball takes a fresh look at that controversial history, contrasting the career of Peter Debye, director...
Curiosity
How Science Became Interested in Everything
Language: English
Release Date: April 3, 2013
With the recent landing of the Mars rover Curiosity, it seems safe to assume that the idea of being curious is alive and well in modern science—that it’s not merely encouraged but is seen as an essential component of the scientific mission. Yet there was a time when curiosity was condemned. Neither...
H2O
A Biography of Water
Language: English
Release Date: April 30, 2015
The brilliantly told and gripping story of the most familiar - yet, amazingly, still poorly understood - substance in the universe: Water.
The extent to which water remains a scientific mystery is extraordinary, despite its prevalence and central importance on Earth. Whether one considers its...
Invisible
The Dangerous Allure of the Unseen
Language: English
Release Date: April 8, 2015
If offered the chance—by cloak, spell, or superpower—to be invisible, who wouldn’t want to give it a try? We are drawn to the idea of stealthy voyeurism and the ability to conceal our own acts, but as desirable as it may seem, invisibility is also dangerous. It is not just an optical phenomenon,...
The Water Kingdom
A Secret History of China
Language: English
Release Date: May 5, 2017
From the Yangtze to the Yellow River, China is traversed by great waterways, which have defined its politics and ways of life for centuries. Water has been so integral to China’s culture, economy, and growth and development that it provides a window on the whole sweep of Chinese history. In The...
The Music Instinct:How Music Works and Why We Can't Do Without It
How Music Works and Why We Can't Do Without It
Language: English
Release Date: August 4, 2010
From Bach fugues to Indonesian gamelan, from nursery rhymes to rock, music has cast its light into every corner of human culture. But why music excites such deep passions, and how we make sense of musical sound at all, are questions that have until recently remained unanswered. Now in The Music Instinct,...
Beyond Weird
Why Everything You Thought You Knew about Quantum Physics Is Different
Language: English
Release Date: October 18, 2018
“Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.”
Since Niels Bohr said this many years ago, quantum mechanics has only been getting more shocking. We now realize that it’s not really telling us that “weird” things happen out of sight, on the tiniest level, in the...
The Devil's Doctor
Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science
Language: English
Release Date: April 18, 2006
Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim, who called himself Paracelsus, stands at the cusp of medieval and modern times. A contemporary of Luther, an enemy of the medical establishment, a scourge of the universities, an alchemist, an army surgeon, and a radical theologian, he attracted...
Flow
Nature's patterns: a tapestry in three parts
Language: English
Release Date: June 11, 2009
From the swirl of a wisp of smoke to eddies in rivers, and the huge persistent storm system that is the Great Spot on Jupiter, we see similar forms and patterns wherever there is flow - whether the movement of wind, water, sand, or flocks of birds. It is the complex dynamics of flow that structures...
Universe of Stone
Chartres Cathedral and the Invention of the Gothic
Language: English
Release Date: March 17, 2009
Chartres Cathedral, south of Paris, is revered as one of the most beautiful and profound works of art in the Western canon. But what did it mean to those who constructed it in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries—and why was it built at such immense height and with such glorious play of light, in...
by Philip Ball
Language: English
Release Date: November 27, 2003
Language: English
Release Date: November 27, 2003
The processes in a single living cell are akin to that of a city teeming with molecular inhabitants that move, communicate, cooperate, and compete. In this Very Short Introduction, Philip Ball explores the role of the molecule in and around us - how, for example, a single fertilized egg can grow into...
Branches
Nature's patterns: a tapestry in three parts
Language: English
Release Date: September 10, 2009
As part of a trilogy of books exploring the science of patterns in nature, acclaimed science writer Philip Ball here looks at the form and growth of branching networks in the natural world, and what we can learn from them. Many patterns in nature show a branching form - trees, river deltas, blood...
Shapes
Nature's patterns: a tapestry in three parts
Language: English
Release Date: May 26, 2011
Patterns are everywhere in nature - in the ranks of clouds in the sky, the stripes of an angelfish, the arrangement of petals in flowers. Where does this order and regularity come from? It creates itself. The patterns we see come from self-organization. Whether living or non-living, scientists have...
Patterns in Nature
Why the Natural World Looks the Way It Does
Language: English
Release Date: April 5, 2016
Though at first glance the natural world may appear overwhelming in its diversity and complexity, there are regularities running through it, from the hexagons of a honeycomb to the spirals of a seashell and the branching veins of a leaf. Revealing the order at the foundation of the seemingly chaotic...
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