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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.
List of contents
ELEMENTAL: THE CHARISMA OF CHEMISTRY
1 EFFERVESCENT: THE BEAUTY OF BUBBLES
2 ORDERLY: THE CHARM OF CRYSTALS
3 INSOLUBLE: THE POWER OF PRECIPITATION
4 EXUBERANT: THE DELIGHT OF DENDRITIC GROWTH
5 INCENDIARY: THE FASCINATION OF FLAMES
6 GALVANIZING: THE ENCHANTMENT OF ELECTROCHEMISTRY
7 CHROMATIC: THE CURIOSITY OF COLOR CHANGES IN PLANTS
8 CALESCENT: THE HELPFULNESS OF HEAT
9 ORGANIC: THE CONTORTIONS OF CHEMICAL GARDENS
10 CREATIVE: THE PROFUSION OF PATTERNS
POSTSCRIPT: ART, WONDER, AND SCIENCE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
APPENDIX: MOLECULES AND STRUCTURES
GLOSSARY
SOURCES OF QUOTATIONS
INDEX
About the author
Philip Ball is the author of many critically acclaimed books of popular science, including
Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another,
The Elements: A Very Short Introduction, and
Beyond Weird: Why Everything You Thought You Knew about Quantum Physics Is Different. Wenting Zhu is an artist, designer, and photographer. Yan Liang is Associate Professor at the University of Science and Technology of China and the founder and producer of the educational brand Beauty of Science. He has worked as a science animator and illustrator.
Summary
A “visual tour through the under-appreciated chemical beauty that surrounds us”—with astonishing photographs of the scientific processes that create snowflakes, bubbles, flames, and other natural wonders (WIRED)
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.
Additional text
Choice 2021 Outstanding Academic Title
"Far from portraying a routine lab procedure, this collection showcases chemistry's excitement and aesthetic allure."—Scientific American
"With atomic clarity, science writer Philip Ball narrates this visual tour through the under-appreciated chemical beauty that surrounds us."—WIRED
"Ball's scintillating book is a paean to chemical beauty in nature and laboratories, with lavish images created by Wenting Zhu, Yan Liang and the Chinese Chemical Society."—Nature
