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Philip Ball - Science writer

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Selection of Articles - MATERIALS

A selection of articles and presentations about materials by Philip Ball.

A capacity for change

Extended version, with references, of an article on supercapacitors in MRS Bulletin 37, 798 (2012).

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Smart stuff: R.I. Christmas Lectures

Smart stuff: the text for the booklet accompanying the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures 2002.
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Materials of the future

Materials of the future: an article for the UNESCO Encyclopaedia of Life Support Systems (2001).
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Introduction to: The New Science of Strong Materials

Introduction to the new edition of The New Science of Strong Materials by J. E. Gordon (Princeton University Press, 2005).
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Smart materials

Smart materials: a talk delivered at the University of Oxford, 2002.
Download PDF or Word Doc + PowerPoint Presentation (ZIP file 8.5Mb)

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LATEST BOOK - OUT NOW

Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything

Published by Bodley Head, 2012.

Now available in paperback (Vintage) and in the US edition (University of Chicago Press - here).

Curiosity is dangerous. But it’s far worse than you think, for curiosity was the original sin. In Christian tradition, all the ills of the world follow from the attempt in the Garden to grasp – literally to consume – forbidden knowledge. “When you eat of it”, said the serpent to Eve, “your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God.” Through curiosity, our innocence was lost.