Crucibles: From Alchemy to Chemistry
Excerpt from my book Alchemy (2025).
Chemistry World 22 December 2025. Available here.
Selection of Articles by Philip Ball
The allure of alchemy
Interview with Bethany Halford in Chemical & Engineering News, about alchemy and more. Available here.
20 years of Nature Materials
A selection of my Material Witness columns for Nature Materials on its 20th anniversary. Available here.
Measure for measure
Editorial on the redefinition of the kilogram, Nature Materials 18, 299, April 2019. Available here.
Make it snappy
Food physics and the importance of crunch: an article in Physics World, November 2016. pdf
Chartres and the Triumph of the Medieval Mind
A look at the twelfth-century Renaissance through the windows of Chartres Cathedral: from Nature 452, 816 (2008) pdf
Diffract, then destroy
A profile of the forthcoming European X-ray Free Electron Laser, published in Physics World, September 2016. pdf
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: a myth of anthropoeia
This is the fourth chapter of my book Unnatural (2011), which I’m making available for the bicentenary of the publication of Frankenstein. pdf
Forgotten prophet of the Internet
“Forgotten prophet of the Internet” (book review), Nature 509, 425 (2014). Available here.
The Saga of the Sunstones
An exploration of what historians and archaeologists say about the hypothesis that Vikings used “sunstones” with special optical properties to navigate.
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