{"title":"Philip Ball Books","description":"\u003cp\u003eBrowse the books by Philip Ball we have in stock, second-hand, in paperback and hardback. Mostly science and non-fiction. Every book ships from our own UK warehouse. Free UK delivery on orders of £10 or more.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"critical-mass-how-one-thing-leads-to-another-philip-ball","title":"Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another. Philip Ball","description":"\u003cp\u003eIs there a 'physics of society'? Philip Ball's investigation into human nature ranges from Hobbes and Adam Smith to modern work on traffic flow and market trading, across economics, sociology and psychology. Ball shows how much of human behaviour we can understand when we cease trying to predict and analyse the behaviour of individuals and look to the impact of hundreds, thousands or millions of individual human decisions, in circumstances in which human beings both co-operate and conflict, when their aggregate behaviour is constructive and when it is destructive. By perhaps Britain's leading young science writer, this is a deeply thought-provoking book, causing us to examine our own behaviour, whether in buying the new Harry Potter book, voting for a particular party or responding to the lures of advertisers.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"sb-details\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/philip-ball-books\"\u003ePhilip Ball\u003c\/a\u003e (all their books in stock)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c\/strong\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublished:\u003c\/strong\u003e 2005\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 656\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/strong\u003e Arrow\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eISBN:\u003c\/strong\u003e 9780099457862\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Arrow","offers":[{"title":"Standard Secondhand — £1.00","offer_id":47909025743025,"sku":"SB-0099457865-C3","price":1.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0618\/2669\/5345\/files\/0099457865.jpg?v=1789163058"},{"product_id":"everything-a-very-short-introduction","title":"Everything : A Very Short Introduction","description":"\u003cp\u003eSample sections from the Very short introductions series are presented in this encapsulation of human knowledge.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"sb-details\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/philip-ball-books\"\u003ePhilip Ball\u003c\/a\u003e (all their books in stock)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c\/strong\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublished:\u003c\/strong\u003e 2006\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 125\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/strong\u003e Oxford University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eISBN:\u003c\/strong\u003e 9780199208197\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Oxford University Press","offers":[{"title":"Standard Secondhand — £3.40","offer_id":47909592170673,"sku":"SB-0199208190-C3","price":3.4,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0618\/2669\/5345\/files\/0199208190.jpg?v=1789227359"},{"product_id":"critical-mass-how-one-thing-leads-to-another","title":"Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another","description":"\u003cp\u003eAre there any \"laws of nature\" that influence the ways in which humans behave and organize themselves? In the seventeenth century, tired of the civil war ravaging England, Thomas Hobbes decided that he would work out what kind of government was needed for a stable society. His approach was based not on utopian wishful thinking but rather on Galileo's mechanics to construct a theory of government from first principles. His solution is unappealing to today's society, yet Hobbes had sparked a new way of thinking about human behavior in looking for the \"scientific\" rules of society. \u003cbr\u003eAdam Smith, Immanuel Kant, Auguste Comte, and John Stuart Mill pursued this idea from different political perspectives. Little by little, however, social and political philosophy abandoned a \"scientific\" approach. Today, physics is enjoying a revival in the social, political and economic sciences. Ball shows how much we can understand of human behavior when we cease to try to predict and analyze the behavior of individuals and instead look to the impact of individual decisions-whether in circumstances of cooperation or conflict-can have on our laws, institutions and customs. \u003cbr\u003eLively and compelling, \"Critical Mass\" is the first book to bring these new ideas together and to show how they fit within the broader historical context of a rational search for better ways to live.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"sb-details\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/philip-ball-books\"\u003ePhilip Ball\u003c\/a\u003e (all their books in stock)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c\/strong\u003e Hardback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublished:\u003c\/strong\u003e 2004\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 520\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/strong\u003e Macmillan\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eISBN:\u003c\/strong\u003e 9780374281250\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Macmillan","offers":[{"title":"Standard Secondhand — £13.93","offer_id":47910857900209,"sku":"SB-0374281254-C3","price":13.93,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0618\/2669\/5345\/files\/0374281254.jpg?v=1789271481"},{"product_id":"made-to-measure-new-materials-for-the-21st-century","title":"Made to Measure – New Materials for the 21st Century","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eMade to Measure\u003c\/i\u003e introduces a general audience to one of today's most exciting areas of scientific research: materials science. Philip Ball describes how scientists are currently inventing thousands of new materials, ranging from synthetic skin, blood, and bone to substances that repair themselves and adapt to their environment, that swell and flex like muscles, that repel any ink or paint, and that capture and store the energy of the Sun. He shows how all this is being accomplished precisely because, for the first time in history, materials are being \"made to measure\": designed for particular applications, rather than discovered in nature or by haphazard experimentation. Now scientists literally put new materials together on the drawing board in the same way that a blueprint is specified for a house or an electronic circuit. But the designers are working not with skylights and alcoves, not with transistors and capacitors, but with molecules and atoms.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis book is written in the same engaging manner as Ball's popular book on chemistry, \u003ci\u003eDesigning the Molecular World\u003c\/i\u003e, and it links insights from chemistry, biology, and physics with those from engineering as it outlines the various areas in which new materials will transform our lives in the twenty-first century. The chapters provide vignettes from a broad range of selected areas of materials science and can be read as separate essays. The subjects include photonic materials, materials for information storage, smart materials, biomaterials, biomedical materials, materials for clean energy, porous materials, diamond and hard materials, new polymers, and surfaces and interfaces.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"sb-details\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/philip-ball-books\"\u003ePhilip Ball\u003c\/a\u003e (all their books in stock)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c\/strong\u003e Hardback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublished:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1997\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 458\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/strong\u003e Princeton University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eISBN:\u003c\/strong\u003e 9780691027333\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Princeton University Press","offers":[{"title":"Poor Condition — £4.28","offer_id":47912591425713,"sku":"SB-0691027331-C4","price":4.28,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0618\/2669\/5345\/files\/0691027331.jpg?v=1789248251"},{"product_id":"the-book-of-minds-understanding-ourselves-and-other-beings-from-animals-to-aliens","title":"The Book of Minds: Understanding Ourselves and Other Beings, From Animals to Aliens","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"In this book, popular science writer Philip Ball surveys a range of sciences to map our answers to a big, philosophically rich question, one with practical and ethical consequences for today. How do we even begin to think about minds that are not human? Sciences from astronomy to biology, computer science to neuroscience, are mapping the mind in their own disciplinary territories, and Ball pulls the pieces together so that we can appreciate the full picture-the \"mindscape\" or \"space of possible minds.\" This map makes plain what sorts of minds we might expect to find in the universe. By plotting properties of mind without prioritizing the human, he sheds welcome, new light on a host of fascinating questions: What moral rights should we afford animals? Can we communicate with them? Should we worry that AI is going to take over and run society according to its own agenda? If there are intelligent aliens out there, how would we know? Could we communicate with them? Should we? Understanding the mindscape 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? Before Ball turns to other minds, however, he addresses the human mind: what is it? Is it different from the brain? From one person to the next? In this fascinating book of minds, we come to better know our own\"--Publisher's description.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"sb-details\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/philip-ball-books\"\u003ePhilip Ball\u003c\/a\u003e (all their books in stock)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c\/strong\u003e Hardback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublished:\u003c\/strong\u003e 2022\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 512\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/strong\u003e Pan Macmillan\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eISBN:\u003c\/strong\u003e 9781529069143\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Pan Macmillan","offers":[{"title":"Very Good — £1.52","offer_id":47916303384753,"sku":"SB-1529069149-C2","price":1.52,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0618\/2669\/5345\/files\/1529069149.jpg?v=1789527960"},{"product_id":"beyond-weird-why-everything-you-thought-you-knew-about-quantum-physics-is-different","title":"Beyond Weird: Why everything you thought you knew about quantum physics is different","description":"\u003cp\u003e'This is the book I wish I could have written but am very glad I've read' Jim Al-Khalili\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e'I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.'\u003cbr\u003e Richard Feynman wrote this in 1965 - the year he was awarded the Nobel prize in physics for his work on quantum mechanics.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Quantum physics is regarded as one of the most obscure and impenetrable subjects in all of science. But when Feynman said he didn't understand quantum mechanics, he didn't mean that he couldn't \u003ci\u003edo\u003c\/i\u003e it - he meant that's all he could do. He didn't understand what the maths was \u003ci\u003esaying\u003c\/i\u003e- what quantum mechanics tells us about reality.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Over the past decade or so, the enigma of quantum mechanics has come into sharper focus. We now realise that quantum mechanics is less about particles and waves, uncertainty and fuzziness, than a theory about information- about what can be known and how.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e This is more disturbing than our bad habit of describing the quantum world as 'things behaving weirdly' suggests. It calls into question the meanings and limits of space and time, cause and effect, and knowledge itself.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e The quantum world isn't a different world- it is our world, and if anything deserves to be called 'weird', it's us. This exhilarating book is about what quantum maths \u003ci\u003ereally\u003c\/i\u003emeans - and what it \u003ci\u003edoesn't\u003c\/i\u003emean.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"sb-details\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/philip-ball-books\"\u003ePhilip Ball\u003c\/a\u003e (all their books in stock)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c\/strong\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublished:\u003c\/strong\u003e 2018\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 377\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/strong\u003e Bodley Head\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eISBN:\u003c\/strong\u003e 9781847924582\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Bodley Head","offers":[{"title":"Standard Secondhand — £754.80","offer_id":47917872054449,"sku":"SB-1847924581-C3","price":754.8,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0618\/2669\/5345\/files\/1847924581_ff8e9e9b-2f16-4d49-a227-6457898f6860.jpg?v=1790348974"},{"product_id":"designing-the-molecular-world-chemistry-at-the-frontier-19-princeton-science-library","title":"Designing the Molecular World: Chemistry at the Frontier: 19 (Princeton Science Library)","description":"\u003cp\u003eSome of the most exciting scientific developments in recent years have come not from theoretical physicists, astronomers, or molecular biologists but instead from the chemistry lab. Chemists have created superconducting ceramics for brain scanners, designed liquid crystal flat screens for televisions and watch displays, and made fabrics that change color while you wear them. They have fashioned metals from plastics, drugs from crude oil, and have pinpointed the chemical pollutants affecting our atmosphere and are now searching for remedies for the imperiled planet. Philip Ball, an editor for the prestigious magazine \u003ci\u003eNature,\u003c\/i\u003e lets the lay reader into the world of modern chemistry. Here, for example, chemists find new uses for the improbable buckminsterfullerene molecules--60-atom carbon soccerballs, dubbed \"buckyballs\"--which seem to have applications for everything from lubrication to medicine to electronics.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe book is not intended as an introduction to chemistry, but as an accessible survey of recent developments throughout many of the major fields allied with chemistry: from research in traditional areas such as crystallography and spectroscopy to entirely new fields of study such as molecular electronics, artificial enzymes, and \"smart\" polymer gels. Ball's grand tour along the leading edge of scientific discovery will appeal to all curious readers, with or without any scientific training, to chemistry students looking for future careers, and to practicing chemical researchers looking for information on other specialties within their discipline.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"sb-details\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/philip-ball-books\"\u003ePhilip Ball\u003c\/a\u003e (all their books in stock)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c\/strong\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublished:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1994\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 376\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/strong\u003e Princeton University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eISBN:\u003c\/strong\u003e 9780691029009\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Ball, Philip De Greff","offers":[{"title":"Standard Secondhand — £2.02","offer_id":47977615753393,"sku":"SB-0691029008-C3","price":2.02,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0618\/2669\/5345\/files\/0691029008.jpg?v=1790373675"}],"url":"https:\/\/sellbooks.co.uk\/collections\/philip-ball-books.oembed","provider":"Sell Books .co.uk","version":"1.0","type":"link"}