Beautiful Experiments

An Illustrated History of Experimental Science

Inbunden, Engelska, 2023

278 kr

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Beskrivning

A New Scientist Best Book of 2023Featuring 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.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2023-09-15
Mått:191 x 248 x 33 mm
Vikt:966 g
Format:Inbunden
Språk:Engelska
Antal sidor:240
Förlag:The University of Chicago Press
ISBN:9780226825823

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Mer om författaren

Philip Ball is a freelance writer and broadcaster whose many books on the interactions of the sciences, the arts, and the wider culture include Bright Earth, Curiosity, Patterns in Nature, How to Grow a Human, The Modern Myths, The Elements, and, most recently, The Book of Minds, all also published by the University of Chicago Press. His book Critical Mass won the 2005 Aventis Prize for Science Books. Ball is also the 2022 recipient of the Royal Society’s Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar Medal for contributions to the history, philosophy, or social roles of science. He trained as a chemist at the University of Oxford and as a physicist at the University of Bristol, and he was an editor at Nature for more than twenty years. He lives in London.

Recensioner i media

“Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but for the science writer Ball it emerges from within. In Beautiful Experiments: An Illustrated History of Experimental Science Ball argues that the beauty of an experiment resides in the ‘design and logic embodied in the procedure’—like a masterfully played game of chess—rather than a quality relating to physical appearance. . . . The scientific and anecdotal detail in each account is enough to satisfy the curious reader while entertaining the novice one. Interspersed with explanations of electromagnetism and refraction are notes about which scientist was a poor singer (Ernest Rutherford), which scientist didn’t like that one (Robert Hooke and Isaac Newton), and which scientist felt threatened by his protégé (Humphry Davy and Michael Faraday). Each experiment is numbered, which makes for easy flipping. One can choose to read the book sequentially or to skip from, say, electric fish (Experiment 55) to spontaneous generation (46) to X-ray diffraction (37). That said, there is a certain degree of satisfaction (and frustration) in reading the book in order. One scientist’s work provides an exciting theoretical breakthrough—only to be disproven on the next page. Nearly any failed experiment can become the foundation for another’s success.”