Elegant Solutions. Philip Ball

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      Cover image: PhotoDisc

      ISBN 0-85404-674-7

      PDF eISBN: 978-1-84755-260-0

      EPUB eISBN: 978-1-78262-546-9

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2005

       All rights reserved

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       Contents

       Acknowledgments

       Introduction What is an Experiment? What is Beauty?

       Section 1 Asking Questions of Nature

       Chapter 1 How Does Your Garden Grow?

       Van Helmont’s Willow Tree and the Beauty of Quantification

       Chapter 2 An Element Compounded

       Cavendish’s Water and the Beauty of Detail

       Chapter 3 New Light

       The Curies’ Radium and the Beauty of Patience

       Chapter 4 Radiation Explained

       Rutherford’s Alpha Particles and the Beauty of Elegance

       Chapter 5 The Elements Came in One by One

       Seaborgium’s Chemistry: Small is Beautiful

       Divertissement 1 The Chemical Theatre

       Section 2 Posing New Questions

       Chapter 6 Molecules Take Shape

       Pasteur’s Crystals and the Beauty of Simplicity

       Divertissement 2 Myths and Romances

       Chapter 7 Life and How To Make It

       Urey and Miller’s Prebiotic Chemistry and the Beauty of Imagination

       Chapter 8 Not so Noble

       Bartlett’s Xenon Chemistry and the Beauty of Simplemindedness

       Section 3 The Art of Making Things

       Chapter 9 Nature Rebuilt

       Woodward, Vitamin B₁₂ and the Beauty of Economy

       Chapter 10 Plato’s Molecules

       Paquette’s Dodecahedrane and the Beauty of Design

       Coda Chemical Aesthetics

       Bibliography

       Subject Index