Books by Philip Ball - Philip Ball

Alchemy: An Illustrated History of Elixirs, Experiments and the Birth of Modern Science

Alchemy: An Illustrated History of Elixirs, Experiments and the Birth of Modern Science by Philip Ball

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 scholars in ancient China and India. Many have also attempted to transform lead, mercury, and other metals, into gold – and some claimed to have succeeded.

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HOW LIFE WORKS: A User’s Guide to the New Biology

How Life Works: A User’s Guide to the New Biology by Philip Ball

Biology is undergoing a quiet but profound transformation. Several aspects of the standard picture of how life works—the idea of the genome as a blueprint, of genes as instructions for building an organism, of proteins as precisely tailored molecular machines, of cells as entities with fixed identities, and more—have been exposed as incomplete, misleading, or wrong.

WEBSITE – HOW LIFE WORKS

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BEAUTIFUL EXPERIMENTS: An Illustrated History of Experimental Science

Beautiful Experiments: An Illustrated History of Experimental Science by Philip Ball

Featuring two hundred color 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, in some way or another, exhibited elegance and beauty: in their design, their conception, and their execution. Celebrated science writer Philip Ball invites readers to marvel at and admire the craftsmanship of scientific instruments and apparatus on display, from the earliest microscopes to the giant particle colliders of today.

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THE MODERN MYTHS: Adventures in the Machinery of the Popular Imagination

The Modern Myths: Adventures in the Machinery of the Popular Imagination by Philip Ball

Myths are usually seen as stories from the depths of time—fun and fantastical, but no longer believed by anyone. Yet as Philip Ball shows, we are still writing them—and still living them—today. From Robinson Crusoe and Frankenstein to Batman, many stories written in the past few centuries are commonly, perhaps glibly, called “modern myths.” But Ball argues that we should take that idea seriously. Our stories of Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Sherlock Holmes are doing the kind of cultural work that the ancient myths once did.

Through the medium of narratives that all of us know in their basic outline and which have no clear moral or resolution, these modern myths explore some of our deepest fears, dreams, and anxieties.