Филип Болл - все книги по циклам и сериям | Книги по порядку

If you could be invisible, what would you do? The chances are that it would have something to do with power, wealth or sex. Perhaps all three.
But there's no need to feel guilty. Impulses like these have always been at the heart of our fascination with invisibility: it points to realms beyond our senses, serves as a receptacle for fears and dreams, and hints at worlds where other rules apply. Invisibility is a mighty power and a terrible curse, a sexual promise, a spiritual condition.
This is a history of humanity's turbulent relationship with the invisible. It takes on the myths and morals of Plato, the occult obsessions of the Middle Ages, the trickeries and illusions of stage magic, the auras and ethers of Victorian physics, military strategies to camouflage armies and ships and the discovery of invisibly small worlds.
From the medieval to the cutting-edge, fairy tales to telecommunications, from beliefs about the supernatural to the discovery of dark energy, Philip Ball reveals the universe of the invisible.

From Egyptian wall paintings to the Venetian Renaissance, impressionism to digital images, Philip Ball tells the fascinating story of how art, chemistry, and technology have interacted throughout the ages to render the gorgeous hues we admire on our walls and in our museums.

Finalist for the 2002 National Book Critics Circle Award.

The question has been asked for many centuries, and has produced recipes ranging from the clay golem of Jewish legend to the mass-produced test-tube babies in Brave New World. Unnatural delves beneath the surface at the cultural history of "anthropoeia" - the artificial creation of people - to explore what ti tells us about out views on life, humanity, creativity and technology and the soul.

Похоже, к нам незаметно подкрадывается квантовая революция. Самое время узнать, чем квантовый компьютер отличается от обычного, какой в нём сокрыт потенциал и с какими проблемами сталкиваются ученые при его создании. Будущее ближе, чем нам кажется. Перевод: Андрей Зубов, Мария Елистратова, Вероника Чупрова. Редактура: Слава Солнцева, Илья Силаев, Сергей Разумов

A cutting-edge examination of what it means to be human and to have a 'self' in the face of new scientific developments in cloning, gene-splicing and neural downloading.After seeing his own cells used to grow clumps of new neurons – essentially mini-brains – Philip Ball begins to examine the concepts of identity and consciousness. Delving into humanity's deep evolutionary past to look at how complex creatures like us emerged from single-celled life, he offers a new perspective on how humans think about ourselves. In an age when we are increasingly encouraged to regard the 'self' as an abstract sequence of genetic information, or as a pattern of neural activity that might be 'downloaded' to a computer, I return us to the body – to flesh and blood – and anchor a conception of personhood in this unique and ephemeral mortal coil. How to Build a Human brings us back to ourselves – but in doing so, it challenges old preconceptions and values. It asks us to rethink how we exist in the world.