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The Elements
Oxford University Press 2004; US$ 9.99This 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. The book covers from the Greek philosophers who propounded a system with four elements - earth, air, fire, and water - to the scientists who are able to create their own. more...
Molecules
Oxford University Press 2003; US$ 9.99Molecules are the building blocks of matter. Using the molecules of life as a springboard, Philip Ball provides a new perspective on modern chemistry. He shows how molecular scientists are capturing the dynamism of biological molecules in synthetic systems, promising to reinvent chemistry as the central creative science of the new century. more...
Universe of Stone
HarperCollins 2009; US$ 13.99Chartres Cathedral, south of Paris, is revered as one of the most beautiful and profound works of art in the Western canon. But what did it mean to those who constructed it in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries?and why was it built at such immense height and with such glorious play of light, in the soaring manner we now call Gothic? In this eminently... more...
Branches
OUP Oxford 2009; US$ 21.99As 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 them.Many patterns in nature show a branching form - trees, river deltas, blood vessels, lightning, the cracks that form in the glazing... more...
Flow
OUP Oxford 2009; US$ 17.99From 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, sand, or flocks of birds. It is the complex dynamics of flow that structures our atmosphere, land, and oceans.Part of a trilogy... more...
The Music Instinct
Oxford University Press, USA 2010; US$ 20.99From Bach fugues to Indonesian gamelan, from nursery rhymes to rock, music has cast its light onto every corner of human culture. But why music excites such deep passions, and how we make sense of musical sound at all have, until recently, remained mysterious. Now in The Music Instinct, award-winning writer Philip Ball provides the first comprehensive,... more...
Unnatural
Random House 2011; US$ 13.34Can 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 beneath the surface of the cultural history of 'anthropoeia' - the artificial creation of people - to explore what it... more...
The Music Instinct Brain Shot
Random House 2010; US$ 6.53All 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 profoundly mysterious. Now in The Music Instinct Brain Shot Philip Ball provides the first comprehensive, accessible survey of... more...
Bright Earth
Random House 2012; US$ 17.34Colour in art - as in life - is both inspiring and uplifting, but where does it come from? How have artists found new hues, and how have these influenced their work? Beginning with the ancients - when just a handful of pigments made up the artist's palette - and charting the discoveries and developments that have led to the many splendoured rainbow... more...
Universe of Stone
Random House 2011; US$ 13.33In 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 which was the cathedral of Chartres: a revolution in thought embodied in stone and glass, and a bridge between the ancient and... more...









