All articles by Philip Ball – Page 16
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Opinion
The science of scents is not simple
The flowery language of fragrance chemistry doesn't distract Philip Ball from the sharp scent of olfactory understanding
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Feature
Feynman's fancy
Richard Feynman's famous talk on atom-by-atom assembly is often credited with kick-starting nanotechnology. Fifty years on, Philip Ball investigates how influential it really was
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Opinion
The utility of oxidation states
Oxidation state is a convenient fiction, but the concept is far from meaningless, writes Philip Ball
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Feature
Literary reactions
Chemistry makes occasional appearances in fiction but rarely takes centre stage. Philip Ball unearths chemistry's fictional roles
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Opinion
Casimir concord
Philip Ball uncovers a pleasing symmetry surrounding the mysterious Casimir force
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Opinion
Notions of nanobots
Ubiquitous images of nanobots are 20,000 leagues from reality, warns Phil Ball
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Opinion
Is the time ripe for a new second?
Philip Ball asks if you can spare him 429 228 004 229 952 oscillations of your time
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Opinion
Fitting science into fiction
You don't need to understand the science bits, says Philip Ball, just what they represent
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Review
Chemistry for the masses
How do you portray a science that now owes (perhaps) as much to Bill Gates as to Bunsen?
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Opinion
Unbalanced DNA
If DNA polymerisation is reversible, asks Philip Ball, why don't we end up with some static equilibrium?
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Opinion
Identifying an ancient miracle medicine
Philip Ball gets down to earth with chemical archaeologists
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News
Core electrons' quantum jig revealed
When an electron is ejected from deep inside a molecule, what happens to the hole depends on what you measure
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Feature
Pulling our strings
There is much more to DNA than that elegant double helix. Philip Ball explores the twists and tangles of chromatin
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Feature
Complexity crystallised
Protein x-ray crystallography has come a long way from a 12 year search for the structure of a single protein. Philip Ball reports