Ball Philip. Life's Matrix. A Biography of Water

Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1999. — 429 p.Tells of water's origins, history, and fascinating pervasiveness, including, for example, fourteen forms of ice, and provides a provocative exploration of the possibility of water on other planets, which highlights the possibility of life beyond Earth.Water was the matrix of the world and of all its creatures... Just as the noblest and most delicate colors arise from this black, foul earth, so various creatures sprang forth from the primordial substance that was only formless filth in the beginning. Behold the element of water in its undifferentiated state! And then s ee how all the metals, all the stones, all the glittering rubies, shining carbuncles, crystals, gold, and silver are derived from it; who could have recognized all these
things in water?
Paracelsus, c. 1531-35Some substances become mythical. They transcend their physical and chemical materiality and manifest themselves in our minds as symbols, as qualities. In the collective unconscious of a culture, their material constitution becomes secondary to their symbolic value. Gold, to the alchemists, was more than a metal-it was perfection, the goal of a spiritual quest. It is not enough to describe fire as a luminescing gas, and there is something vital and irrevocable about blood that makes it no mere colloidal suspension. In general, a scientific account of mythical substances is bound to disappoint.
With water, that need not be so. Even when we remove its symbolic trappings, its association with purity, with the soul, with the maternal and with life and youth, when we reduce it to a laboratory chemical or a geological phenomenon, water continues to fascinate . At first glance a simple molecule, water still offers up profound challenges to science.
But why a biography? Because, like a person, water has immediate, evident, and familiar characteristics that can be understood only, if at all, by a consideration of its deeper makeup, of the hidden factors that shape its behavior. So I shall need to explore water's inner nature, the physics and chemistry of its unique personality. Molded thus by physical forces, water leads a remarkable life in the wide world. I shall look at the influence water exerts on life, on the planetary environments of Earth and other worlds and stars, even on our own preconceptions about the possibilities
of science . --- Philip BallEditorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Billed as "A Biography of Water," Life's Matrix would seem to have taken on a nearly insurmountable challenge. Yet author Philip Ball, science writer and consulting editor for Nature, covers the very interesting chemistry and physics of the substance and our species' long relationship with it without losing the reader--after all, each of us is mostly made of the wet stuff. From the ancients' conception of water as an element, recognizing its importance and primacy among terrestrial matter, to our current understanding of the intricate dance of hydrogen bonds that give water its unique, life-giving properties, Ball always finds the right angle to keep the story compelling. Chapters covering the nuts and bolts of water, which the reader might reasonably expect to be a bit dry, consistently remind us of its crucial role in so many aspects of our lives, from ocean currents to irrigation to tears. Some of the cutting-edge scientific reports are weirdly fascinating--the discovery of several different conformations of liquid and solid water and their odd behavior will provoke plenty of brow-furrowing, even if none of us will ever find ice-nine cubes in our cocktails at happy hour. The book closes with the now-obligatory look at what a mess we've made of the book's subject when seen as a natural resource, and offers potential short- and long-term solutions. Facing these issues is vital if we want to remember "Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink" as great poetry rather than apocalyptic prophecy. --Rob Lightner
From Publishers Weekly
Water, water everywhere: from cell nuclei to the morning dew and the polar icecaps, water matters in every biological and almost every physical process we can observe on earth. Ball (Designing the Molecular World) has therefore written a very ambitious book: physics and chemistry of many varieties, cell biology, geology, volcanology, climatology, the history of science, gardening, near-earth astronomy and even urban planning and Middle East politics enter into his fact-packed and pleasurably long flume ride of a book. Ball moves swimmingly from the Big Bang to the discovery of hydrogen, oxygen and molecular structure and then into the workings of rivers, groundwater flow, oceanic currents and evapotranspiration, which together make up the all-important hydrological cycle. That cycle in turn depends on properties that make water exceptionalDamong them its "ability to exist in more than one physical stateDsolid, liquid or gasD... at the surface of the planet." Frozen water in glaciers, advancing or retreating as earth cooled or warmed, created much of our present landscape. Atmospheric water interacts constantly with air currents to keep California's vineyards fertile or to flatten Bangladesh with frequent cyclones. Ball covers the early investigators who tried to figure out how liquids behave. He considers how ions in water work, and what this means for solar power. And he looks at the brouhaha over "polywater," a sort of '70s prequel to cold fusion. "Water's inner nature, the physics and chemistry of its unique personality" might have flummoxed a lesser writer, but Ball has composed for the serious reader a definitive account of rain, sleet, snow, vapor and other forms of H2OD"why it is so remarkable a substance, and why as a result it is the matrix of life." (June)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Ball's experience as a science writer (Designing the Molecular World) and a consulting editor to Nature shows through in this multifaceted "biography" of water. The title might lead some readers to believe that the focus will be on biology, but this engaging work examines this deceptively simple compound in terms of astronomy, geology, natural philosophy, climatology, physics, and chemistry as well. Indeed, Ball does an excellent job of explaining how the physical and chemical peculiarities of water give rise to its unique properties, which make life on Earth possible. There is even a chapter on missteps taken in the study of water, such as polywater and cold fusion. Ball concludes his book with an epilog on water as an ecological resource. The author doesn't let the scientific nature of the topic overwhelm the reader; cartoons and analogies make complex concepts accessible to novices. Recommended for public and academic libraries.
-Wade M. Lee, Univ. of Toledo Libs., OH
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Ball stands in inquisitive awe of water and forcefully imparts his wonder at the chemical's uniqueness. He opens with the story of water's geological activities, from the hydrologic cycle to ocean currents to erosion and sedimentation. He detours to the other bodies in our solar system on which water has been detected (they include even the sun), then returns to Earth to discuss the prescientific concept of water as an element and what modern chemistry, thanks to the advances of Priestley and Lavoisier, revealed it to be: a compound of oxygen and hydrogen. Ball delves into the peculiarities--the water molecule's boomerang shape and electrical polarity--that make water perform such feats as forming several types of ice and dissolving almost anything. As for water's crucial function in cell structure and metabolism, Ball clearly explains how water's distinctive chemistry probably begot photosynthesis and cell membranes. A discussion of recent research into water, including the cold-fusion fiasco, concludes this fascinating "portrait" of a most interesting "player" in life per se and in each human life. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright American Library Association. All rights reserved
Reviews
"...He has handled his incredibly complex scientific brief more skillfully and more entertainingly than anybody else could have done." -- Anna Paterson, Sunday Herald [Glasgow]"...The author's panoramic knowledge, conveyed through a clear and often delightful writing style, makes attractive reading." -- Frank H. Stillinger, Nature"...one of the best science books of the year...Ball makes us look afresh at the most commonplace substance imaginable..." -- Graham Farmelo, New Scientist"Encyclopedic...Ball's prose is lively, and he renders the most arcane-sounding phenomena...understandable." -- Christine Kenneally, The New York Times Book Review, December 10, 2000A saga awash in history, science and detail...marvelous. -- Scott LaFee, The San Diego Union-Tribune, July 9, 2000A tour de force of scientific exposition...fascinating. -- Harvey Shepard, The Inquirer, August 13, 2000An absorbing scientific treatise. -- Gilbert Lewthwaite, The Sun, Baltimore, July 23, 2000Like John McPhee's books on American geology, it's an extraordinarily comprehensive volume of natural science, written in a confident... fluid style. -- Susan Adams, Forbes Life, July 24, 2000About the Author
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 and The Music Instinct. His book Critical Mass won the 2005 Aventis Prize for Science Books. Ball is also the 2022 recipient of the Royal Society’s Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar Medal for contributions to the history, philosophy, or social roles of science. He trained as a chemist at the University of Oxford and as a physicist at the University of Bristol, and he was an editor at Nature for more than twenty years. He lives in London.