Philip Ball Poradie kníh

Wie groß ist die Erde? Was ist Licht und wie entsteht Wärme? Was hat es mit der Schwerkraft auf sich und wie funktioniert der genetische Code? Über diese und ähnliche Fragen haben Wissenschaftler und Wissenschaftlerinnen über die Jahrhunderte nachgedacht und dabei nicht nur nach Antworten gesucht, sondern auch nach Möglichkeiten, diese zu beweisen. In diesem reich bebilderten Buch führt uns Philip Ball anhand sechzig wegweisender Experimente quer durch die Geschichte der Naturwissenschaft. Dabei erhalten wir nicht nur spannende Einblicke in die von Irrungen und Wirrungen geprägten Wege der Forschenden, sondern auch in die technischen Fortschritte, die nötig waren, um den Geheimnissen der Natur und des Universums auf die Spur zu kommen.

A cutting-edge new vision of biology that proposes to revise our concept of what life is - from Science Book Prize winner and former Nature editor 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.

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?Science now has plenty to say about the properties of mind. In recent decades, the mind - both human and otherwise - has been explored by scientists in fields ranging from zoology to astrobiology, computer science to neuroscience. Taking a uniquely broad view of minds and where they might be found - including in plants, aliens, and God - Philip Ball pulls these multidisciplinary 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, 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'.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?The more we learn about the minds of other creatures, from octopuses to chimpanzees, and to imagine the potential minds of computers and alien intelligences, the greater the perspective we have on if and how our own is different. 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.

'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 Times A 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.

Science Book Prize-winning science writer Philip Ball explores the diversity of thinking minds, from the variety of human minds to those of mammals, insects, computers and plants, in a book that brilliantly illuminates how many different ways there are to think and engage with the world; and how particular are our own.

Eine atemberaubende visuelle Reise zu den chemischen Bausteinen unseres Universums! Gold, Kupfer, Zinn und Silber – hinter jedem Element des Periodensystems verbergen sich spannende Geschichten. Wie die Menschheit die chemischen Elemente entdeckte und sich zu Nutze machte. «Die Elemente» ist eine atemberaubende visuelle Reise durch die Entdeckungsgeschichte der chemischen Bausteine unseres Universums. Sie beginnt in der Vorgeschichte, als sich die Menschen erstmals Eisen, Zinn, Gold und Silber zunutze machten, und endet mit dem Atomzeitalter und dem Teilchenbeschleuniger. Dabei erläutert Philip Ball nicht nur, woraus das Universum letztendlich besteht, sondern er beschreibt auch den von Irrungen und Wirrungen geprägte Weg, den die Forscher und Forscherinnen hin zur modernen Chemie und der Entdeckung des Periodensystems zurückgelegt haben. Entsprechend werden neben den «echten» Elementen auch hypothetische Elemente thematisiert, die sich im Laufe der Zeit aber als inexistent erwiesen haben – beispielsweise das prote hyle und der himmlische Äther der alten Griechen oder aus jüngerer Zeit das Phlogiston und die kalorische Substanz.

The first fully illustrated history of the chemical elements.

"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?"--back cover

Images and text capture the astonishing beauty of the chemical processes that create snowflakes, bubbles, flames, and other wonders of nature.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. Using such techniques as microphotography, time-lapse photography, and infrared thermal imaging, The Beauty of Chemistry shows us how chemistry underpins the formation of snowflakes, the science of champagne, the colors of flowers, and other wonders of nature and technology. We see the marvelous configurations of chemical gardens; the amazing transformations of evaporation, distillation, and precipitation; heat made visible; and more.