Philip Ball

Featuring two hundred colour plates, this history of the craft of scientific inquiry is as exquisite as the experiments it documents. This illustrated history of experimental science is more than just a celebration of the ingenuity that scientists and natural philosophers have used throughout the ages to study—and to change—the world. Here we see in intricate detail experiments that have,...

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 natural world, Patterns in Nature explores not only the math...

This book offers a largely chronological illustrated guide to how the chemical elements were discovered over the past three millennia. It provides a view not just of how we came to understand what everything is made of but also of how chemistry developed from a trial-and-error craft of making and transforming substances into a rational modern science that provides us...

With The Modern Myths, brilliant science communicator Philip Ball spins a new yarn. From novels and comic books to B-movies, it is an epic exploration of literature, new media and technology, the nature of storytelling, and the making and meaning of our most important tales. Myths are usually seen as stories from the depths of time—fun and fantastical, but no...

“Impressive. . . . Rich in cultural history and imagination. . . . To Ball, mythic writing is where the conditions of irrationality, superstition, and enchantment persist: forms of wonder that depend on the disconnect between what we know for sure and what we simply believe.” —New York Times Book Review Myths are usually seen as stories from the depths...

Alchemy by Philip Ball is flush with hundreds of illustrations, revisiting the histories of chemistry, medicine, ideas, and culture through the lens of alchemy. The craft of alchemy has intrigued and mystified people since antiquity. Many early cultures are known to have experimented with chemical transformations: from dyes, glazes, and cosmetics in Bronze Age Egypt to life-extending elixirs pursued by...

After Einstein and Oppenheimer, Niels Bohr was the most influential physicist of the 20th century. He was the central figure in the development of quantum mechanics (contra Einstein with whom he clashed). Due to his Jewish ancestry, he had to escape from his native Denmark during the Second World War and ended up working on the Manhattan project to build...