Philip Ball

Flush with hundreds of illustrations, this book revisits 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 scholars in ancient China and India. Many have also attempted to transform lead, mercury, and other metals into gold—and some claim to have succeeded. In this visually stunning volume, Philip Ball sets alchemy within the context of the history of science and culture, showing that it was not simply an esoteric fantasy but an important phase in the development of experimental science and natural philosophy. Rich illustrations complement a narrative history of the methods and techniques developed in alchemical workshops, the search for the philosopher’s stone and “elixirs of life” that extended across diverse cultures, and the controversies surrounding the practices of making alchemical gold and alchemical medicine. Ball explores the rise of alchemy from its inception in Hellenistic culture, through the golden age of Islamic natural philosophy in the eighth to the eleventh centuries, to the emergence of the tradition of natural magic in the Renaissance, and to the roles of alchemical thought and practice in the beginnings of early modern science in the seventeenth century. He traces the persistence of alchemical ideas through the occult revival of the late nineteenth century and the fascination of the topic for modern artists and writers. This engaging and accessible book will provide readers of all backgrounds with a nuanced understanding of alchemy and its history.

'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 [here] that is amazing . . . urgent . . . astonishing.' – The Sunday TimesA cutting-edge new vision of biology that proposes to revise our concept of what life is – from Science Book Prize winner Philip Ball.Biology is undergoing a quiet but profound transformation. Several aspects of the standard picture of how life works have been exposed as incomplete, misleading, or wrong.In How Life Works, Philip Ball explores the new biology, revealing life to be a far richer, more ingenious affair than we had guessed. With this knowledge come new possibilities. Today we can redesign and reconfigure living systems, tissues, and organisms. We can reprogram cells, for instance, to carry out new tasks and grow into structures not seen in the natural world. Some researchers believe that ultimately we will be able to regenerate limbs and organs, and perhaps even create new life forms that evolution has never imagined.Incorporating the latest research and insights, How Life Works is a sweeping journey into this new frontier of the nature of life, a realm that will reshape our understanding of life as we know it.

Uzory vstrechajutsja v prirode povsjudu - v verenitse oblakov na nebe, v polosakh ryby-angela, v venchike tsvetka. Udivitelno, no etot porjadok sozdaetsja sam soboj - vse estestvennye patterny, kotorye my vidim, voznikajut v rezultate samoorganizatsii.Eta kniga - chast trilogii, issledujuschej zakonomernosti v prirode. V nej avtor rassmatrivaet, kak obrazujutsja prirodnye formy, i objasnjaet, pochemu pokhozhie struktury obnaruzhivajutsja v sovershenno raznykh uslovijakh. Ot mylnykh puzyrej do pchelinykh sot, ot tonkikh uzorov rakovin i vplot do razvivajuschikhsja chastej tela takogo slozhnogo sozdanija, kak chelovek, - vsjudu neizbezhno i samoproizvolno voznikajut zakonomernosti rosta, kotorye upravljajutsja ne bolee chem prostymi fizicheskimi silami.Kniga pomogaet vzgljanut na okruzhajuschij nas mir po-novomu i uvidet porjadok dazhe tam, gde my ego menshe vsego ozhidaem.

"Bold and intriguing."--Wall Street Journal - "Penetrating. . . . Provocative and profound."--Publishers Weekly (starred review) - "Offers plenty of food for thought."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Ball's marvelous book is both wide-ranging and deep. . . . I could not put it down."--Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Song of the Cell and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Emperor of All Maladies A new, cutting-edge vision of biology that revises our understanding of what life itself is, how to enhance it, and what possibilities it offers. 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. In How Life Works, Philip Ball explores the new biology, revealing life to be a far richer, more ingenious affair than we had guessed. Ball explains that there is no unique place to look for an answer to this question: life is a system of many levels--genes, proteins, cells, tissues, and body modules such as the immune system and the nervous system--each with its own rules and principles. How Life Works explains how these levels operate, interface, and work together (most of the time). With this knowledge come new possibilities. Today we can redesign and reconfigure living systems, tissues, and organisms. We can reprogram cells, for instance, to carry out new tasks and grow into structures not seen in the natural world. As we discover the conditions that dictate the forms into which cells organize themselves, our ability to guide and select the outcomes becomes ever more extraordinary. Some researchers believe that ultimately we will be able to regenerate limbs and organs, and perhaps even create new life forms that evolution has never imagined. Incorporating the latest research and insights, How Life Works is a sweeping journey into this new frontier of the life sciences, a realm that will reshape our understanding of life as we know it.

'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 [here] that is amazing . . . urgent . . . astonishing.' – The Sunday TimesA cutting-edge new vision of biology that proposes to revise our concept of what life is – from Science Book Prize winner Philip Ball.Biology is undergoing a quiet but profound transformation. Several aspects of the standard picture of how life works have been exposed as incomplete, misleading, or wrong.In How Life Works, Philip Ball explores the new biology, revealing life to be a far richer, more ingenious affair than we had guessed. With this knowledge come new possibilities. Today we can redesign and reconfigure living systems, tissues, and organisms. We can reprogram cells, for instance, to carry out new tasks and grow into structures not seen in the natural world. Some researchers believe that ultimately we will be able to regenerate limbs and organs, and perhaps even create new life forms that evolution has never imagined.Incorporating the latest research and insights, How Life Works is a sweeping journey into this new frontier of the nature of life, a realm that will reshape our understanding of life as we know it.

"Prekrasnoe napominanie o tom, pochemu muzyka tak vazhna dlja vsekh nas. Strast Bolla k muzyke ochevidna na kazhdoj stranitse". - The Sunday Times "Bolla sleduet pokhvalit za raznoobrazie i umestnost muzykalnykh primerov, kotorye on vybiraet - ot Albinoni do Led Zeppelin, ot Bakha do mjuzikla "Zvuki muzyki", - a takzhe za ego vnimanie k muzyke v tselom". - The Guardian Ostroumnyj, chestnyj analiz muzykalnogo fenomena, kotoryj perevernet vashe predstavlenie o, kazalos by, ochevidnykh veschakh. - Kak svjazanny rok-muzyka i bljuz? - Pochemu my napevaem, kogda schastlivy? - Pochemu muzyku mozhno schitat otdelnym jazykom? - Kak izbavljal slushatelej ot skuki Devid Boui? - Kak Black Sabbath vsego odnoj pesnej sozdali tseloe muzykalnoe napravlenie? Otvety na eti i mnogie drugie voprosy vy najdete na stranitsakh knigi Filippa Bolla. V rezultate poluchilas nastojaschaja feerija, kotoraja mogla by rasshirit ne tolko predstavlenie chitatelej ob effektakh muzyki, no i podarit im sposobnost naslazhdatsja ljubimymi melodijami po-novomu. Kniga stanet idealnym podarkom dlja vsekh vljublennykh v muzyku.

"Bold and intriguing."--Wall Street Journal - "Penetrating. . . . Provocative and profound."--Publishers Weekly (starred review) - "Offers plenty of food for thought."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Ball's marvelous book is both wide-ranging and deep. . . . I could not put it down."--Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Song of the Cell and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Emperor of All Maladies A new, cutting-edge vision of biology that revises our understanding of what life itself is, how to enhance it, and what possibilities it offers. 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. In How Life Works, Philip Ball explores the new biology, revealing life to be a far richer, more ingenious affair than we had guessed. Ball explains that there is no unique place to look for an answer to this question: life is a system of many levels--genes, proteins, cells, tissues, and body modules such as the immune system and the nervous system--each with its own rules and principles. How Life Works explains how these levels operate, interface, and work together (most of the time). With this knowledge come new possibilities. Today we can redesign and reconfigure living systems, tissues, and organisms. We can reprogram cells, for instance, to carry out new tasks and grow into structures not seen in the natural world. As we discover the conditions that dictate the forms into which cells organize themselves, our ability to guide and select the outcomes becomes ever more extraordinary. Some researchers believe that ultimately we will be able to regenerate limbs and organs, and perhaps even create new life forms that evolution has never imagined. Incorporating the latest research and insights, How Life Works is a sweeping journey into this new frontier of the life sciences, a realm that will reshape our understanding of life as we know it.

The compelling story of leading physicists in Germany-including Peter Debye, Max Planck, and Werner Heisenberg-and how they accommodated themselves to working within the Nazi state in the 1930s and '40s. 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 of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Berlin, with those of two other leading physicists in Germany during the Third Reich: Max Planck, the elder statesman of physics after whom Germany's premier scientific society is now named, and Werner Heisenberg, who succeeded Debye as director of the institute when it became focused on the development of nuclear power and weapons. Mixing history, science, and biography, Ball's gripping exploration of the lives of scientists under Nazism offers a powerful portrait of moral choice and personal responsibility, as scientists navigated "the grey zone between complicity and resistance." Ball's account of the different choices these three men and their colleagues made shows how there can be no clear-cut answers or judgment of their conduct. Yet, despite these ambiguities, Ball makes it undeniable that the German scientific establishment as a whole mounted no serious resistance to the Nazis, and in many ways acted as a willing instrument of the state. Serving the Reich considers what this problematic history can tell us about the relationship between science and politics today. Ultimately, Ball argues, a determination to present science as an abstract inquiry into nature that is "above politics" can leave science and scientists dangerously compromised and vulnerable to political manipulation.

A New Scientist Best Book of 2023 Featuring two hundred color plates, this history of the craft of scientific inquiry is as exquisite as the experiments whose stories it shares. 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. With Ball as our expert guide, we are encouraged to think carefully about what experiments are, what they mean, and how they are used. Ranging across millennia and geographies, Beautiful Experiments demonstrates why “experiment” remains a contested notion in science, while also exploring how we came to understand the way the world functions, what it contains, and where the pursuit of that understanding has brought us today.

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 minds and where they might be found – including in plants, aliens, and God – prize-winning science writer Philip Ball pulls these multidisciplinary pieces together to explore what sorts of minds we might expect to find in the universe.He offers for the first time a unified way of thinking about what minds are and what they can do, arguing that in order to understand our own minds and imagine those of others, we need to move on from considering the human mind as a standard against which all others should be measured, and to think about the ‘space of possible minds’.Ball sheds new light on a host of fascinating questions. What moral rights should we afford animals, and can we understand their thoughts? Should we worry that AI is going to take over society? If there are intelligent aliens out there, how could we communicate with them? Should we? Ball’s thrillingly ambitious The Book of Minds about the nature and existence of minds is more mind-expanding than we could imagine. In this fascinating panorama of other minds, we come to better know our own.

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 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. We keep returning to these tales, reinventing them endlessly for new uses. But what are they really about, and why do we need them? What myths are still taking shape today? And what makes a story become a modern myth? In The Modern Myths, Ball takes us on a wide-ranging tour of our collective imagination, asking what some of its most popular stories reveal about the nature of being human in the modern age.

‘Combining neurology, philosophy, computer science and artificial intelligence. . . a fascinating and illuminating account’ - The GuardianUnderstanding the human mind and how it relates to the world of experience has challenged scientists and philosophers for centuries. How do we even begin to think about ‘minds’ that are not human? That is the question explored in this ground-breaking book. In The Book of Minds, Award-winning science writer Philip Ball argues that in order to understand our own minds and imagine those of others, we need to move on from considering the human mind as a standard against which all others should be measured.Science has begun to have something to say about the properties of mind; the more we learn about the minds of other creatures, from octopuses to chimpanzees, to imagine the potential minds of computers and alien intelligences, the more we can begin to see our own, and the more we can understand the diversity of the human mind, in the widest of contexts. By understanding how minds differ, we can also best understand our own.

Popular science writer Philip Ball explores a range of sciences to map our answers to a huge, philosophically rich question: How do we even begin to think about minds that are not human? Sciences from zoology to astrobiology, computer science to neuroscience, are seeking to understand minds in their own distinct disciplinary realms. Taking a uniquely broad view of minds and where to find them--including in plants, aliens, and God--Philip Ball pulls the pieces together to explore what sorts of minds we might expect to find in the universe. In so doing, he offers for the first time a unified way of thinking about what minds are and what they can do, by locating them in what he calls the "space of possible minds." By identifying and mapping out properties of mind without prioritizing the human, Ball sheds new light on a host of fascinating questions: What moral rights should we afford animals, and can we understand their thoughts? Should we worry that AI is going to take over society? If there are intelligent aliens out there, how could we communicate with them? Should we? Understanding the space of possible minds also reveals ways of making advances in understanding some of the most challenging questions in contemporary science: What is thought? What is consciousness? And what (if anything) is free will? Informed by conversations with leading researchers, Ball's brilliant survey of current views about the nature and existence of minds is more mind-expanding than we could imagine. In this fascinating panorama of other minds, we come to better know our own.

The first fully illustrated history of the chemical elements.

From water, air, and fire to tennessine and oganesson, celebrated science writer Philip Ball leads us through the full sweep of the field of chemistry in this exquisitely illustrated history of the elements. The Elements is a stunning visual journey through the discovery of the chemical building blocks of our universe. By piecing together the history of the periodic table, Ball explores not only how we have come to understand what everything is made of, but also how chemistry developed into a modern science. Ball groups the elements into chronological eras of discovery, covering seven millennia from the first known to the last named. As he moves from prehistory and classical antiquity to the age of atomic bombs and particle accelerators, Ball highlights images and stories from around the world and sheds needed light on those who struggled for their ideas to gain inclusion. By also featuring some elements that aren't true elements but were long thought to be--from the foundational prote hyle and heavenly aetherof the ancient Greeks to more recent false elements like phlogiston and caloric--The Elements boldly tells the full history of the central science of chemistry.

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 Water Kingdom, renowned writer Philip Ball opens that window to offer an epic and powerful new way of thinking about Chinese civilization. Water, Ball shows, is a key that unlocks much of Chinese culture. In The Water Kingdom, he takes us on a grand journey through China's past and present, showing how the complexity and energy of the country and its history repeatedly come back to the challenges, opportunities, and inspiration provided by the waterways. Drawing on stories from travelers and explorers, poets and painters, bureaucrats and activists, all of whom have been influenced by an environment shaped and permeated by water, Ball explores how the ubiquitous relationship of the Chinese people to water has made it an enduring metaphor for philosophical thought and artistic expression. From the Han emperors to Mao, the ability to manage the waters to provide irrigation and defend against floods was a barometer of political legitimacy, often resulting in engineering works on a gigantic scale. It is a struggle that continues today, as the strain of economic growth on water resources may be the greatest threat to China's future. The Water Kingdom offers an unusual and fascinating history, uncovering just how much of China's art, politics, and outlook have been defined by the links between humanity and nature.