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Science & Maths
Made to Measure introduces a general audience to one of today's most exciting areas of scientific research: materials science. Philip Ball describes how scientists are currently inventing thousands of new materials, ranging... See More
Science & Maths
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... See More
Science & Maths
Some of the most exciting scientific developments in recent years have come not from theoretical physicists, astronomers, or molecular biologists but instead from the chemistry lab. Chemists have created superconducting... See More
Science & Maths
If you could be invisible, what would you do? The chances are that it would have something to do with power, wealth or sex. Perhaps all three. But there's no need to feel guilty. Impulses like these have always been at the... See More
Science & Maths
Serving the Reich tells the story of physics under Hitler. While some scientists tried to create an Aryan physics that excluded any 'Jewish ideas', many others made compromises and concessions as they continued to work under... See More
Biography & True Accounts
Selected as a Book of the Year by The Times and The Economist China's history is an epic tapestry of courtly philosophies, warring factions and imperial intrigue. Yet, over five thousand years, one ancient element has so... See More
Science & Maths
Can we make a human being? The question has been asked for many centuries, and has produced recipes ranging from the clay golem of Jewish legend to the mass-produced test-tube babies in Brave New World. Unnatural delves... See More
Science & Maths
There was a time when curiosity was condemned. Through curiosity, our innocence was said to be lost. Yet this hasn't deterred us. Today we spend vast sums trying to recreate the first instants of creation in particle... See More
Science & Maths
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... See More
All human cultures seem to make music - today and through history. But why they do so, why music can excite deep passions, and how we make sense of musical sound at all are questions that have, until recently, remained... See More
Contemporary Fiction
What if you had developed a machine that generated energy for free and no one believed you? That is the lot of Kurt Neder, once Einstein's accomplice and the brightest young physicist of his generation, now a lost soul... See More
Science & Maths
The bestselling 30-Second... series takes a revolutionary approach to learning about those subjects you feel you should really understand. Each title selects a popular topic and dissects it into the 50 most significant... See More
Science & Maths
This Very Short Introduction traces the history and cultural impact of the elements on humankind, and examines why people have long sought to identify the substances around them. Looking beyond the Periodic Table, the author... See More
Science & Maths
Society is complicated. But this book argues that this does not place it beyond the reach of a science that can help to explain and perhaps even to predict social behaviour. As a system made up of many interacting agents... See More
Politics & Social Sciences
Is there a 'physics of society'? Philip Ball's investigation into human nature ranges from Hobbes and Adam Smith to modern work on traffic flow and market trading, across economics, sociology and psychology. Ball shows how... See More
History
In the twelfth century, Christians in Europe began to build a completely new kind of church - soaring, spacious monuments flooded with light from immense windows. These were the first Gothic churches, the crowning example of... See More
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... See More
Why have all human cultures - today and throughout history - made music? Why does music excite such rich emotion? How do we make sense of musical sound? These are questions that have, until recently, remained mysterious... See More
Biography & True Accounts
Philip Theophrastus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim - known to later ages as Paracelsus - stands on the borderline between medieval and modern; a name that is familiar but a man who has been hard to perceive or understand... See More
Science & Maths
PHYSICS WORLD 2018 BOOK OF THE YEAR 'A clear and deeply researched account of what's known about the quantum laws of nature, and how to think about what they might really mean' Nature 'I think I can safely say that nobody... See More
Science & Maths
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... See More
Politics & Social Sciences
Understanding the human mind and how it relates to the world that we experience has challenged philosophers for centuries. How then do we even begin to think about 'minds' that are not human? Taking a uniquely broad view of... See More
Science & Maths
Devising and performing a scientific experiment is an art, and it is common to hear scientists talk about the 'beauty' of an experiment. What does this mean in chemistry, the experimental science par excellence? And what are... See More
Science & Maths
For centuries, scientists have struggled to understand the origins of the patterns and forms found in nature-from the leopards spots to the graceful spirals of a mollusc shell to the complex designs on a butterflys wing... See More
Science & Maths
A cutting-edge examination of what it means to be human and to have a 'self' in the face of new scientific developments in genetic editing, cloning and neural downloading. After seeing his own cells used to grow clumps of... See More
Science & Maths
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... See More
With the Netherlands overrun by French Republican forces, the British and Russian governments sent an allied army of 48,000 men under the Duke of York to liberate the country and restore the House of Orange.The largest... See More
Science & Maths
'An essential primer on humanity's ongoing quest to understand the secrets of life... Excellent... Ball is a terrific writer.' - Adam Rutherford, The Guardian 'Ball is a ferociously gifted science writer... There is so much... See More