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    Invisible: The Dangerous Allure of the Unseen
    Unavailable
    Invisible: The Dangerous Allure of the Unseen
    Unavailable
    Invisible: The Dangerous Allure of the Unseen
    Ebook480 pages7 hours

    Invisible: The Dangerous Allure of the Unseen

    By Philip Ball

    3/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    If offered the chance—by cloak, spell, or superpower—to be invisible, who wouldn’t want to give it a try? We are drawn to the idea of stealthy voyeurism and the ability to conceal our own acts, but as desirable as it may seem, invisibility is also dangerous. It is not just an optical phenomenon, but a condition full of ethical questions. As esteemed science writer Philip Ball reveals in this book, the story of invisibility is not so much a matter of how it might be achieved but of why we want it and what we would do with it.

    In this lively look at a timeless idea, Ball provides the first comprehensive history of our fascination with the unseen. This sweeping narrative moves from medieval spell books to the latest nanotechnology, from fairy tales to telecommunications, from camouflage to ghosts to the dawn of nuclear physics and the discovery of dark energy.  Along the way, Invisible tells little-known stories about medieval priests who blamed their misdeeds on spirits; the Cock Lane ghost, which intrigued both Samuel Johnson and Charles Dickens; the attempts by Victorian scientist William Crookes to detect forces using tiny windmills; novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s belief that he was unseen when in his dressing gown; and military efforts to enlist magicians to hide tanks and ships during WWII.  Bringing in such voices as Plato and Shakespeare, Ball provides not only a scientific history but a cultural one—showing how our simultaneous desire for and suspicion of the invisible has fueled invention and the imagination for centuries.

    In this unusual and clever book, Ball shows that our fantasies about being unseen—and seeing the unseen—reveal surprising truths about who we are.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
    Release dateApr 8, 2015
    ISBN9780226238920
    Unavailable
    Invisible: The Dangerous Allure of the Unseen
    Author

    Philip Ball

    Philip Ball is a freelance writer and broadcaster, and was an editor at Nature for more than twenty years. He writes regularly in the scientific and popular media and has written many books on the interactions of the sciences, the arts, and wider culture, including H2O: A Biography of Water, Bright Earth: The Invention of Colour, The Music Instinct, and Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything. His book Critical Mass won the 2005 Aventis Prize for Science Books. Ball is also a presenter of Science Stories, the BBC Radio 4 series on the history of science. He trained as a chemist at the University of Oxford and as a physicist at the University of Bristol. He is the author of The Modern Myths. He lives in London.

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    Reviews for Invisible

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    • 3/5
      The ability to become invisible has been a fascination of the human race for millennia. But what would you do if you could vanish from sight? Would you use your new found power or abuse it? In this book, Philip Ball has mixed science and history to reveal this subject. Starting with the myths and legends of Plato, before moving through the occult fascination of the dark and middle ages, and ends up with the Victorians and their captivation with ghosts, fairies, magic and auras.

      Following the historical part, Ball moves onto the modern ages with several interesting chapters on the advent of radio transmissions, on radiation and X-rays, the discovery of bacteria and viruses following the invention of the microscope. There is a chapter on the evolution of military camouflage, from the bright reds and blues of the army, and how they ended up with the drab khaki colours for armies. The naval part is quite good, with photos on some of the mad ideas that they had to hide boats and ships from the enemy. The stealth aircraft these days manage to look like something the size of a golf ball on a radar screen, quite amazing given their size.

      Overall it is a good book. I felt that he spent a little too long on the historical detail, and I would have preferred much more on the modern technologies that scientists and engineers are using to make people and object disappear from sight. Worth reading though, as all Philips Ball’s book are.