Philip Ball in Conversation with Samuel Loncar at Marginalia Review:
If you’ve read any of Ball’s remarkable books, you might have noticed something I found extraordinary, which led to the question that began our conversation. Ball has written books on subjects as diverse as the history of China (The Water Kingdom), physics, chemistry, biology, music (The Music Instinct) and Chartres Cathedral (Universe of Stone). In all of his books, he brings the highest quality scientific and scholarly research, often from vastly different fields, into a coherent, intellectually original, and exciting story. Besides writing popular books, he actively publishes peer-reviewed research, and his written scientific articles in fields as diverse as astrobiology, physics, chemistry, and biology. It is a remarkable and uncommon combination of breadth and depth, even among the many brilliant writers in the world of science.
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