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Patterns in Nature: Why the Natural World Looks the Way It Does by Philip Ball
Category: Non-Fiction
Though at first glance the natural world may appear overwhelming in its diversity and complexity, there are regularities running through it, from the hexagons of a honeycomb to the spirals of a seashell and the branching veins of a leaf. Revealing the order at the foundation of the seemingly chaotic nat ...Show more
Serving the Reich: The Struggle for the Soul of Physics Under Hitler by Philip Ball
Category: History
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 the Nazi regime. Among them were three world-renowned physicists: Max Planck, p ...Show more
Shapes: Nature's Patterns: A Tapestry in Three Parts by Philip Ball
Category: Science
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 come from self-organization. Whether living or non-living, scientists have foun ...Show more
The Beauty of Chemistry: Art, Wonder, and Science by Philip Ball
Category: Science
Chemistry is not just about microscopic atoms doing inscrutable things; it is the process that makes flowers and galaxies. We rely on it for bread-baking, vegetable-growing, and producing the materials of daily life. In stunning images and illuminating text, this book captures chemistry as it unfolds. U ...Show more
The Book of Minds by Philip Ball
Category: Science
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? Science now has plenty to say about the properties of mind. In recent decades, the mind - both human and otherwi ...Show more
The Elements: A Visual History of Their Discovery by Philip Ball
Category: Science
This book offers a largely chronological illustrated guide to how the chemical elements were discovered over the past three millennia. It provides a view not just of how we came to understand what everything is made of but also of how chemistry developed from a trial-and-error craft of making and transf ...Show more
The New Science of Strong Materials - Or Why You Don't Fall Through the Floor by James Edward Gordon; Philip Ball (Introduction by)
Category: Science | Series: Princeton Science Library
J. E. Gordon's classic introduction to the properties of materials used in engineering answers some fascinating and fundamental questions about how the structural world around us works. Gordon focuses on so-called strong materials--such as metals, wood, ceramics, glass, and bone--explaining in engaging ...Show more
The Water Kingdom by Philip Ball
Category: Non-Fiction | Series: Everyman's Library Classics
A secret history of China - a fresh new way of thinking about a people, a civilisation, an epic story. The Water Kingdom takes us on a grand journey through China's past and present, offering a unique window through which we can begin to grasp the overwhelming complexity and teeming energy of the countr ...Show more
Unnatural: The Heretical Idea of Making People by Philip Ball
Category: Science
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 beneath the surface of the cultural history of 'anthropoeia' - the artificial creati ...Show more