Philip Ball

Philip Ball (born 1962) is an English science writer. He holds a degree in chemistry from Oxford and a doctorate in physics from Bristol University. He was an editor for the journal Nature for over 10 years. He now writes a regular column in Chemistry World. Ball's most-popular book is the 2004 Critical Mass: How One Things Leads to Another, winner of the 2005 Aventis Prize for Science Books. It examines a wide range of topics including the business cycle, random walks, phase transitions, bifurcation theory, traffic flow, Zipf's law, Small world phenomenon, catastrophe theory, the Prisoner's dilemma. The overall theme is one of applying modern mathematical models to social and economic phenomena.

Bibliography

• Designing the Molecular World: Chemistry at the Frontier (1994), ISBN 0-691-00058-1
• Made to Measure: New Materials for the 21st Century (1997), ISBN 0-691-02733-1
• The Self-made Tapestry: Pattern Formation in Nature (1999), ISBN 0-19-850244-3
• H₂O: A Biography of Water (1999), ISBN 0-297-64314-2 (published in the U.S. as Life's Matrix)
• Stories of the Invisible: A Guided Tour of Molecules (2001), ISBN 0-19-280214-3 (republished as Molecules: A Very Short Introduction)
• Bright Earth: The Invention of Colour (2001), ISBN 0-670-89346-3
• The Ingredients: A Guided Tour of the Elements (2002), ISBN 0-19-284100-9 (republished as The Elements: A Very Short Introduction)
• Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another (2004), ISBN 0-434-01135-5
• Elegant Solutions: Ten Beautiful Experiments in Chemistry (2005), ISBN 0-85404-674-7
• The Devil's Doctor: Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science (2006), ISBN 0-434-01134-7
• The Sun and Moon Corrupted, a novel, Portobello Books Ltd, (2008), ISBN 978-1846271083
• Shapes, Nature's Patterns, a Tapestry in three Parts (2009), ISBN 9780199237968
• Flow, Nature's Patterns, a Tapestry in three Parts (2009), ISBN 9780199237975
• Branches, Nature's Patterns, a Tapestry in three Parts (2009), ISBN 9780199237982
• The Music Instinct (2010), ISBN 9781847920881

External links

• Philip Ball Homepage