Philip Ball

For other people named Philip Ball, see Philip Ball (disambiguation).

Philip Ball
Born	1962 (age 62–63)
Alma mater	Oxford University Bristol University
Occupation	Science writer
Notable work	Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another
Website	www.philipball.co.uk

Philip Ball (born 1962) is a British science writer. For over twenty years he has been an editor of the journal Nature , for which he continues to write regularly. ^[1]

He is a regular contributor to Prospect magazine ^[2] and a columnist for Chemistry World, Nature Materials , and BBC Future.

Biography

Ball holds a degree in chemistry from Oxford and a PhD in physics from the University of Bristol. ^[3] He has also been awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters degree in 2009, again from Bristol.

Ball's 2004 book Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another won 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. ^[4]

In 2011, Ball published The Music Instinct in which he discusses how we make sense of sound and Music and emotion. He outlines what is known and still unknown about how music has such an emotional impact, and why it seems indispensable to humanity. He has since argued that music is emotively powerful due to its ability to mimic humans and through setting up expectations in pitch and harmony and then violating them. ^{[5] [ better source needed ]}

Ball has written a research review on organism-centered evolution. ^{[6] [7]} He has contributed to publications ranging from New Scientist ^[8] to The New York Times , The Guardian , the Financial Times , and New Statesman . In June 2004 he presented a three-part serial on nanotechnology, Small Worlds, on BBC Radio 4.

Selected publications

• 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 (2003), OUP, ISBN   978-0-19-285430-8)
• 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 (2004), OUP, ISBN   978-0-19-284099-8)
• 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 ^[9]
• The Sun and Moon Corrupted, a novel, Portobello Books Ltd, (2008), ISBN   978-1-84627-108-3
• Universe of Stone: A Biography of Chartres Cathedral (2008), ISBN   978-0-06-115429-4
• Shapes, Nature's Patterns, a Tapestry in three Parts (2009), ISBN   978-0-19-923796-8
• Flow, Nature's Patterns, a Tapestry in three Parts (2009), ISBN   978-0-19-923797-5
• Branches, Nature's Patterns, a Tapestry in three Parts (2009), ISBN   978-0-19-923798-2
• The Music Instinct (2010), ISBN   978-1-84792-088-1
• Unnatural, The Heretical Idea of Making People (2011), ^[10] ISBN   978-1-84792-152-9
• Why Society is a Complex Matter: Meeting Twenty-first Century Challenges with a New Kind of Science (2012), ISBN   978-3-642-28999-6
• Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything (2013), ISBN   978-0-226-04579-5
• Serving the Reich: The Struggle for the Soul of Physics under Hitler (2014), ISBN   978-0-226-20457-4 ^{[11] [12]} Read an excerpt.
• Invisible: The Dangerous Allure of the Unseen (2015), University of Chicago Press, ISBN   978-0-226-23889-0; (2014), Random House ^[13]
• Patterns in Nature: Why the Natural World Looks the Way It Does (2016), ISBN   978-0-226-33242-0
• The Water Kingdom: A Secret History of China (2017), ISBN   978-0-226-36920-4
• Beyond Weird: Why Everything You Thought You Knew About Quantum Physics is Different (2018), ISBN   978-1-84792-457-5
• How to Grow a Human: Adventures in Who We Are and How We Are Made (2019), ISBN   978-0-00-833178-8 ^[14] ISBN   978-0-00-833177-1
• The Beauty of Chemistry: Art, Wonder, and Science (2021) ISBN   978-0-262-04441-7
• The Elements: A Visual History of Their Discovery (2021) ISBN   978-0-500-02453-9
• The Book of Minds: How to Understand Ourselves and Other Beings, from Animals to AI to Aliens (2022), ISBN   978-0-226-79587-4 ^[15]
• How Life Works: A User's Guide to the New Biology (2023) ISBN   978-1-5290-9599-9 ^[16]
• "A New Understanding of the Cell: Gloppy specks called biomolecular condensates are rewriting the story of how life works", Scientific American , vol. 332, no. 2 (February 2025), pp. 22–27. "Biomolecular condensates now seem to be a key part of how life gets its countless molecular components to coordinate and cooperate, to form committees that make the group decisions on which our very existence depends." (p. 24.)

Awards

Ball's Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another won the 2005 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books. ^[17] His book Serving the Reich: The Struggle for the Soul of Physics under Hitler was on the shortlist for the 2014 prize. ^[18]

Ball was awarded the Physics World Book of the Year 2018 for his book Beyond Weird: Why Everything You Thought You Knew About Quantum Physics Is Different. ^[19]

In 2019 Ball won the Kelvin Medal and Prize.

Ball's article "Should scientists run the country" ^[20] won the 2022 award from the Association of British Science Writers for the best opinion piece. ^[21] He was also awarded the Royal Society's 2022 Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar Medal for excellence in a subject relating to the history of science, philosophy of science or the social function of science. ^[22]

In 2023, Ball was awarded the Special CSS award, an award "granted by the society to distinguished personalities who, through their activity in society in general, contributed in some way to the development of the field of complex systems." ^[23]

References

1. "Philip Ball – Science writer". Philip Ball. Retrieved 24 July 2013.
2. Ball, Philip. "Curse of cursive handwriting". Prospect Magazine. Retrieved 19 November 2013.
3. "Doctor of Letters, 14 July 2009 - Orator: Professor Kathy Sykes". University of Bristol. Retrieved 26 August 2025.
4. Harkin, James. (2004). Critical Mass – How One Thing Leads to Another. The Independent .
5. "Music's Mystery". Institute of Art and Ideas . Retrieved 19 November 2013.
6. "Organisms as Agents of Evolution: New Research Review". templeton.org. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
7. "Organisms as Agents of Evolution". templeton.org. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
8. Ball, Philip. "Engineering light: Pull an image from nowhere". New Scientist. Retrieved 19 November 2013.
9. Shackelford, Jole (2007). "Paracelsus, Healer of the German Reformation". Chemical Heritage Magazine . 25 (3): 45. Retrieved 22 March 2018.
10. Conrad, Peter (12 February 2011). "Review of Unnatural: The Heretical Idea of Making People by Philip Ball". The Guardian.
11. Mangravite, Andrew (2015). "Magical Thinking". Distillations . 1 (4): 44–45. Retrieved 22 March 2018.
12. Eckert, Michael (2015). "Review of Serving the Reich: The Struggle for the Soul of Physics Under Hitler Serving the Reich: The Struggle for the Soul of Physics Under Hitler by Philip Ball". Physics Today. 68 (4): 55–56. doi: 10.1063/PT.3.2752 .
13. Vickers, Salley (11 August 2014). "Review of Invisible: The Dangerous Lure of the Unseen by Philip Ball". The Guardian.
14. Walter, Patrick (3 December 2019). "Review of How to Grow a Human: Adventures in Who We Are and How We Are Made by Philip Ball". Chemistry World.
15. "ISBN Search – The Book of Minds: How to understand ourselves and other beings, from animals to AI to aliens". isbnsearch.org. Retrieved 22 May 2023.
16. Noble, Denis (5 February 2024). "Book Review of "How Life Works: A User's Guide to the New Biology" by Philip Ball, Pan Macmillan (2023) – It's time to admit that genes are not the blueprint for life – The view of biology often presented to the public is oversimplified and out of date. Scientists must set the record straight, argues a new book" . Nature . 626: 254–255. doi:10.1038/d41586-024-00327-x. Archived from the original on 5 February 2024. Retrieved 5 February 2024.
17. "Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books". Royal Society. Retrieved 25 September 2015.
18. Melissa Hogenboom (10 November 2014). "Materials book wins Royal Society Winton Prize". BBC. Retrieved 11 November 2014.
19. "Beyond Weird by Philip Ball wins Physics World Book of the Year 2018". Physics World. 17 December 2018. Retrieved 22 May 2023.
20. Ball, Philip (27 September 2021). "The big idea: should scientists run the country?". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 22 May 2023.
21. "ABSW Awards 2022: The winners". Association of British Science Writers. Retrieved 22 May 2023.
22. "Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar Medal and Lecture | Royal Society". royalsociety.org. Retrieved 22 May 2023.
23. "Special CSS Award". Complex Systems Society. Retrieved 9 December 2025.

External links

• Official website