Life's Matrix: A Biography of Water

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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

Book Description

In this brilliantly written and engrossing biography of one of Earth's most common yet unusual substances, Philip Ball reduces the scientific and philosophical inquiry of over two thousand years to one essential question: What exactly is water?

It is one of the four elements of classical antiquity. It is a geological force that shapes mountains and coastlines, with a might that is unleashed in the destructive fury of hurricanes and floods. Water is the fabric of snow, hail, steam, and ice, and the only substance able to exist on earth in all three of its physical states: solid, liquid, and gas. Water is central to our planetary environment. Life's Matrix tells of water's origins, its history, and its fascinating pervasiveness: there are, for example, at least fourteen different forms of ice. A provocative exploration of water on other planets highlights the possibilities of life beyond Earth. Life's Matrix reveals the unexpected in the most ordinary places--a drop of dew, a frozen pond, a cup of coffee--and the familiar in unexpected settings. There is water on the sun and the moon, at the heart of molecular biology, at the core of a cell, and there may be enough of it beneath the surface of the Earth to refill the oceans thirty times over. Life's Matrix also surveys the grim realities of our natural resources, and shows how water will become a scarce commodity in the twenty-first century.

Ball's lively and intelligent book takes us on a journey through the history of science, folklore, the wilder fringes of the scientific world, cutting-edge chemistry, physics, cell biology, and ecology to give a startling new perspective on life and the substance that sustains it. Life's Matrix offers an exhilarating exploration of one of the oldest, most idiosyncratic substances known to mankind, and ensures that we will never think about water in the same way again.

Customer Reviews:

A good accurate science book.......2006-10-04

It's amazing what you can find on the internet. In contrast to what an earlier review suggests this is a very interesting, well written and scientifically accurate book. If you want to read a book about the importance and uniqueness of water then this is the one for you.

I stressed its accuracy as despite the claims nuclear fusion at room temperature is not a reality (why don't we all have palladium teacups powering our laptops) and the memory of water is far from proven (primarily because the proponents can't work out how it forgets)! The New Scientist is not a peer-reviewed journal (and nor should it be as speculation and opinion are important parts of what it does) so quoting an article is no proof at all.

The only query I have is why this book was renamed "Life's matrix" for the American audience. Has no one heard of H20 (its UK title) over there?

Fascinating, but error prone.......2004-05-20

Full of quotations of classics and poetry, written as literature with wonderful similes and metaphors, this "Biography of Water" roams from ancient civilizations to outer planets. The middle third was the most satisfactory, with details of the various forms of ice, how organisms cope with freezing, and what makes water so unusual. Explanations of its hydrogen bonding patterns and how they might change to make ice less dense than liquid water, and the funny shrinkage of water above its melting point and are all interesting. The many functions of water in biological systems, right down to the molecular level are given, and there are a number of cleverly done diagrams.
Ball's major blunder in this middle part was his complete failure to explain what holds normal liquids together, that is, what are the van der Waals forces (p165)? This leads to an absurd reason for the cohesion cell membranes, where the hydrocarbon tails of lipid bilayers are said to be held together merely by their repulsion of water (p253). Most college chemistry texts do better on both counts (including Linus Pauling, "General Chemistry", 3rd ed., 1965). The UV light from the sun is presented as detrimental only (p235). Ball seems unaware that vitamin D is formed from the action of UVB on cholesterol in the skin, and that there is less cancer the closer humans live to the equator. In recounting all the effects on the development of life (atmospheric composition, heat, cold, nutrients), Ball ignores the contribution of 10 times the radioactivity the Earth now has in promoting chemical reactions and mutations long ago (see T. D. Luckey, "Radiation Hormesis", 1991).
More minor problems are speaking of a vacuum "sucking" (p240), the pH of stomach acid as 1 rather than 1-3 (p247), missing the true function of the Glomar Challenger as a submarine salvage vessel (p47), a confusion of the effect of pressure on a melting point by comparing with the effect of pressure on the the boiling point of water (p51), implying that the reaction of sulfur dioxide with water gives sulfuric acid (p101) rather than sulfurous acid, and that paraffin wax has a viscosity anywhere near as low as 15 centipoises (p282).
It is when Ball enters the realm of politicized science that serious misinformation flows. Water vapor is by far the most important greenhouse gas and human activities add plenty of it to the atmosphere by irrigation, burning methane which puts 2 molecules of water into the air with just 1 of carbon dioxide, of burning gasoline, jet and diesel fuel, unlike p66. See "Hot Talk, Cold Science" by S. Fred Singer. Cold fusion has been replicated in half a dozen laboratories; the reality of the effect cannot be dismissed by ignoring the publications and merely listing ones that do not show the effect) (p307). See "Excess Heat" by Charles G. Beaudette, 2001. Memory effects in water at really high dilutions are real (see Lionel Milgrom, New Scientist, 11 Jun 03). Homeopathy effects were demonstrated against placebo in trials (BMJ 1991;302:316-323), all contrary to p334.
Read this "chocolate and cherry syrup coated" book at your own risk.

--Joel M. Kauffman 20 May 04

Thorough, interesting and multifaceted.......2003-07-07

Wow. At first having noted the author's vita on the cover, I wasn't certain that an individual trained "only" in chemistry and physics could adequately write a book that was "obviously" about geology. As I read on, however, I realized that Phillip Ball's intention really was to write a "biography of water" as the subtitle suggested. The book in fact contains information about water from almost every perspective: from the origins of its constituent elements oxygen and hydrogen in cosmological processes to it's social and political effects in the modern world. The book covers it all. Because I have almost a complete degree in geology, I enjoyed most particularly the geological effects of water including its effects on geomorphology, its impact on glacial formation, its effect on climate and ocean physics, etc. The author lost me a little in his discussion of the chemistry and physics of the substance, but I still found what I understood of it very instructive. Water's function in the evolution of life and in the biochemistry of cellular metabolism was also interesting to me since I enjoy studying evolution-paleontolgoy and earth history were my major focus in studying geology--and I also am a nurse caring for patients whose fluid and electrolyte status arises from the cellular effects of water.

Probably the most important messages in the book, however, are those regarding conservation and utilization of water resources. Certainly the information about the disparity of water availability and quality between the western and 3rd world countries, between urban and rural use, and between countries and states that have competing interests in a particular watershed were very enlightening. It was surprising to learn that part of the problems of the Middle East revolve around water availability and use. These issues certainly provide previews to future problems that will almost certainly arise globally in the not too distant future!

A very thorough, interesting and multifaceted book.

Water, Water Everywhere.......2000-12-28

We live on the planet called Earth. That just shows our chauvinism and inability to see the larger picture. The planet ought to be called Water. As Philip Ball points out in _Life's Matrix: A Biography of Water_ (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux), water covers two thirds of the globe, and seen from space, water in its three different states is what determines what Earth looks like. It also determines that every other heavenly body we have been able to see looks to us like a lifeless orb. It is water that defines life for us, and when we go poking our noses into other planets, one of the first things we try to find is water. So no wonder that Ball has called this a biography.

And like a good biography, the book covers all the aspects of his subject. He goes into the origins of water back to the big bang. He shows how we found it on the moon and Mars, and of all places, our Sun. Since he is a doctor of physics, it is not really surprising that he looks at the chemistry and physics of his subject, detailing why ice expands, and why you can ski on solid water but not on asphalt. He tells how its currents run the oceans, and how we don't completely understand the molecular happenings in water flow, or in the formation of snowflakes. He tells us about the dire problems we could have if we don't start handling this most precious and most taken-for-granted resource with more wisdom. He reports at length on the foolishness of cold fusion of heavy water, or of polywater.

In short, this book wonderfully covers every aspect of water you could think of. Ball writes with humor and excellent analogies, and even when the science gets complicated, he is an excellent guide.

Unexpected Wonders.......2000-12-23

Book Description

An update and extension of the first edition, c1983. Puts emphasis on the developments over the last two decades, especially with regards to water quality, usage, economics, and policies. Also looks at water's role in the life sciences and ecology and its influence on dissolved substances.

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Water : The Matrix of Life
Krishna Kumar Mishra
Manufacturer: National Book Trust (NBT)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 8123733143

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Life's Matrix: A Biography of Water
Philip Ball
Manufacturer: Farrar Straus Giroux
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OX3Y74

Book Description

In recent years, due to increasing demands of consumers for alternative and preventive health management, the market for supplements, nutraceuticals, and functional foods has expanded exponentially. Food Factors in Health Promotion and Disease Prevention brings together expert scientists in chemistry, biochemistry, genetics, pharmacology, and related medical sciences from Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Europe, and North America to addresss important food factors which have shown effects in health promotion and disease prevention. This volume includes recent advances in phytochemicals and health, including several chapters on bioavailability, signal transduction, and gene modulation of bioactives in foods.

Food Factors in Health Promotion and Disease Prevention

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Food Factors in Health Promotion and Disease Prevention
Fereidoon Shahidi
Manufacturer: NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000N67UV8

Book Description

Since Newton's time many have proposed that gravitation arises from the absorption by material bodies of minute particles or waves filling space. Such absorption would cause bodies to be pushed into each other's shadows. The principal early proponent of this idea was Georges-Louis Le Sage. The essays in this book explore the remarkable three hundred year saga of Le Sage's theory, gravitational shielding and the experiments of Q. Majorana, and new and recent Le Sage Models.

Customer Reviews:

Surprising and satisfying.......2005-02-14

This is a remarkable book, from both the historical side of science and
from the future side, as well. The book shows that, contrary to what is said
for the laity, gravity is still not understood, and perhaps Einstein wasn't correct
in everything. There is an amazing, short chapter uniting gravity and EM theory
by suggesting that gravity is just ultra-long EM waves! And they are ultralong
because of the Compton effect. The Compton effect puzzled Bohr and Einstein,
and ultimately convinced Bohr about quanta. That it might be the cause
of gravity is an exciting idea. The book deserves reading my anyone adventarous
enough to think that scientific ideas should be considered that aren't in the
beaten path.

good science, great reading!.......2004-01-12

I'm by no means a scientist -- I got a "C" in chemistry in college -- but I enjoy books about cosmology and astronomy, especially ones that challenge accepted wisdom. I loved this book. Reading it is like taking a joyride through the universe at speeds thousands of times faster than light! All the essays were great, especially Tom Van Flandern's. Ever wonder what Copernicus felt as he realized that most scientists of his day had it wrong? Get this book and you'll experience some of that sense of wonder and excitement. Then read Van Flandern's magnum opus "Dark Matter,Missing Planets and New Comets: Paradoxes Resolved,Origins Illuminated."
by Michael Christian

Much variety from a common theme.......2004-01-08

This is an eminently refreshing book. In a world that takes "bending of space" as literal, and for granted, it's worthwhile remembering that we still don't have a mechanism for how gravity works. Even the "bending of space" might imply being "pushed" by interaction with particles from some physical fourth dimension.

This book takes a step back from that and tries to posit physical underpinnings of gravity in our own universe, no extra dimensions required.

The major underlying position of the papers in this book is that gravity is caused by the pushing force of particles. That said, there's an impressive variety of mechanisms through which it can be accomplished, and various authors set out to posit their particular solutions.

Explanations range from the markedly hypothetical (Tom van Flandern posits faster-than-light interaction, disallowed by Einsteinian relativity, but surprisingly allowed by Lorentzian relativity), to the almost 'banal' (positing that gravity is caused by normal EM particles of a particular wavelength, along the same way that microwaves and heat-infrared interact), and many options in-between.

There's a lot of solid mathematics going on here, which you can follow along with, and a lot of decent prose to go with it.

What I found most interesting was that, while many equations duplicate the inverse square law to the umpteenth degree, many of the theories posit testable aberrations from the inverse square law. That may be the lynchpin to their success (or failure). Some propose they might solve the mysteries of the aberrations of satellite orbits, or even why a galaxy can maintain its outer rim shape without huge amounts of dark matter.

Highly recommended.

Have you ever wondered what causes gravity?.......2003-02-22

Some of the greatest minds in history have pondered this question-and then pretty much given up on it. Newton, and later Einstein, to a more exacting degree, gave us mathematical models of gravity, which hold true to this day. Except that they say nothing about the mechanism which actually causes gravity. Einstein's theory, General Relativity (GR), attributes the cause to the "fabric of space." But as Tom Van Flandern, one of the contributors to this book, points out, Einstein's "rubber sheet analogy" presumes real gravity underneath the "fabric" which causes planets to sink down into the "gravity wells" in the sheet. It therefore explains nothing about the real cause of gravity.
In the mid 18th century, G.L. LeSage proposed a mechanical theory of gravity whereby tiny particles in space move about in all directions and at very high speeds, causing equal force on all sides of any object or planet they make contact with. But the space between any two objects has less of these particles or "gravitons" than the surrounding space, because some of the gravitons have already been absorbed as they passed through the object. This dearth of gravitons between objects causes a kind of low-pressure area allowing the gravitons in the outlying areas to push the objects together-thus causing gravity.
LeSage's theory has been revived and then rejected by many famous scientists over the years, and is presently undergoing its most recent revival. If such particles exist, there must be a way to detect them. One method, attempted by the physicist Q. Majorana, early in the 20th century, was to test the effect that gravitational shielding has on the absorption of gravitons and hence the weight of objects. Through elaborate scaling experiments carried out in a very careful and meticulous manner, he obtained some seemingly positive results. But these results, along with more recent shielding experiments using satellites in Earth orbit, have not been conclusive. They have not yet been demonstrated to the satisfaction of the mainstream of science.
What the theory of pushing gravity does have, especially in its modern versions, is its compelling logic. It posits a physical cause to gravity as opposed to, for example, Newton's instant action at a distance, (IAAD), (which, incidentally Newton was never happy with), and Einstein's "fabric of space."
Van Flandern, an astronomer, and one of pushing gravity's most convincing advocates, points out that IAAD can be better explained by positing gravitons which move at many times the speed of light. A slower propagation speed, e.g., the speed of light, would cause a delay or aberration of the signal carrying the gravitational force between, say, the Sun and the Earth. This would cause Earth's orbit to be unstable.
For those interested in serious cutting edge science, but accessible to the intelligent layman, this is a fascinating book. There is some "quantitative" (i.e. mathematical) description, but most of the essays are perfectly lucid on the "qualitative" (verbal) level.
If there is ever to be "anti-gravity" science in mankind's future, the physical cause of gravity must first be understood. This book is a must for optimistic science enthusiasts.

Book Description

Were it not for the Marquis de Sade's explicit use of language and complete disregard for the artificially constructed taboos of a religious morality he despised, the novelty and profundity of his thought, and above all, its fundamental modernity, would have long since secured him a place alongside the greatest authors and thinkers of the European Enlightenment. This Very Short Introduction aims to disentangle the 'real' Marquis de Sade from his mythical and demonic reputation of the past two hundred years. Phillips examines Sade's life and work: his libertine novels, his championing of atheism, and his uniqueness in bringing the body and sex back into philosophy.

Customer Reviews:

Phillips on Sade: Laugh? I nearly died.......2007-06-25

The appearance of John Phillips' The Marquis de Sade: A Very Short Introduction, appearing in the popular Oxford University Press Very Short Introduction series, further secures Sade's place in the occidental canon. Like myself, Phillips takes Sade to be a philosopher, placing him squarely in the context of the 18th Century philosophes. Phillips gives a sound overview of several key philosophical themes in Sade's work, in particular his atheism, his political involvement, and his dealings with gender and sexuality. He also (correctly, I think) takes Sade to anticipate Nietzsche on the question of Judaeo-Christian morality. Philosophical discussion is, however, secondary to literary analysis.

There are a number of problems with the text, besides being too brief for extended philosophical analysis. In seeking to extract his subject from the myth of the `poisonous de Sade,' Phillips goes too far in portraying him as merely misunderstood, thereby propagating an equally dubious counter-myth. He makes a number of factual errors, for example where he asserts that Sade was imprisoned for his writings, rather than his sadistic sexual abuse and his death threats, where he suggests that Sade had read Kant (unsubstantiated in all of the critical literature in either English or French), or where he states that Foucault had published a study on Sade (Foucault merely mentions Sade in passing in a number of texts and interviews). Where Phillips asserts Sade's intellectual sophistication, he frequently goes no further than appealing to the authority of Le Brun, Foucault and Bataille, whose interpretations (which are mutually incompatible on several points) are not critically discussed. (Some of these interpretations have been apparently lifted verbatim: Phillips writes that "Sade is the only atheistic philosopher of his time to have a physical awareness of the infinite," which is word for word from Annie Le Brun; Phillips: 43). Also problematic is Phillips' insistence (found also in his earlier journal article, "Laugh? I nearly died! Humour in Sade's fiction") that the most horrific scenes in Sade are intended to be merely humorous. As with a number of other critics, Phillips also tries to have his cake and eat it, asserting that Sade heroically lived beyond all good and evil, and that it is a mistake to `confuse' his own views with that of his homicidal and sadistic characters. Phillips also inconsistently asserts that Sade's work is concerned with destroying morality and exploring the human psyche's potential for evil, yet merely fictional when it suits his argument, for example where he rejects the Sade-Nazi association made by Camus, Adorno and Horkheimer and others.

Rehabilitating le Bon Marquis.......2006-01-02

There are few people in history whose reputation precedes them to a greater degree than the notorious Marquis de Sade. He is rarely thought of as anything but a vile and violent pornographer whose personal life largely mirrored his written work--so much so that the sexual behavior represented in his most notorious novels is named sadism in his "honor". John Phillips has devoted much scholarly research to rehabilitating the image of Sade, and this brief book (from the outstanding Oxford Very Short Introductions series)is an admirable inclusion to this effort. Along with his other works on Sade, Phillips argues that Sade is far more than just a pornographer. Rather, as a writer he displays wit, irony and satire at a level rarely reached; and as a thinker he develops understandings of man and society that are in many ways well ahead of their time, and worth serious consideration on their own merit as plausible accounts.

After a brief overview of Sade's life, Phillips undertakes an examination of Sade's literary works, placing them within the context of both the widespread government and priestly corruption of l'Ancienne Regime, as well as the haphazard violence of Robbespierre's Committee of Public Safety. In his interpretation, Sade comes through as a master of social and political satire.

But more than just a satirist (though one of the highest order, deserving of recognition along with such greats as Swift, Voltaire, Ehrenreich and Vidal), Sade comes across as someone with a new philosophical approach to man and the world. At a time where atheism was a capital offense, Sade was an unabashed atheist. Long before Freud, Sade recognizes the fundamentality of sexuality to human life. Long before existentialism, Sade was concerned with understanding man within the context of a meaningless world governed only by natural law. Perhaps the best chapter of the book is chapter 5: Theatres of the Body, where Phillips explicates Sade's conception of what we could call (though this is not Phillips' term) a "sextopia", where it is the body and its needs, especially its sexual needs, and not the soul, where man's true nature lay. Especially insightful is his presentation of Sade's "Philosophy in the Boudoir" as an antithesis to the story of the fall-where Eugenie's education into libertinism (which is nicely explicated in the novel) leads her not into expulsion from a spiritual Eden, but assumption into a sexual Eden.

There are many fine points to this work. Phillips clearly places Sade's thought on a continuum with both his predecessors (Julien Offray de la Mettrie and Paul Henri Thierry Baron d'Holbach in particular) and those influenced by him (including Freud, Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Angela Carter and Guillaume Apollinaire). He does an excellent job of bringing out serious philosophical concerns and arguments from Sade's work, even arguing that desipe Sade's reputation his works are so filled with philosophical discourse that they often *fail* as pornography. Phillips also does an outstanding job of evaluating Sade's relationship with feminism and postmodernism as far more ambiguous than many often suppose.

All in all, I have only two complaints about the book, one of which is fairly tangential. The tangential problem is that Phillips tries to locate Sade's own thought within the ethics of Immanuel Kant, but Phillips gets Kant's moral thought as wrong as possible: the view attributed to Kant is precisely the view Kant spends no less than *three* books arguing against. But that's a small matter given the purpose of the book. My only real substantive complaint is that I wish Phillips would have paid more *explicit* attention to Sade's critique of the Enlightenment ideal of reason as a guide to the moral construction of society. This is merely hinted at in this work, but it strikes me that one of Sade's main lessons is the inability of reason to overcome the eruptions of the passions, particularly our "sadistic" and violent urges. Given the quality of this work overall, I suspect that this may be covered more explicitly in Phillips' other works on Sade.

Overall, this is an excellent introduction to the ideas and writings of a man who, like Nietzsche and Marx, is far more often talked about than read. It not only undermines many common assumptions about Sade, but it presents him as a serious literary and philosophical figure whose writings are worth far more careful attention than has been paid to them to date. For that, Phillips deserves our, and le Bon Marquis', sincere thanks.

The Marquis De Sade: A Very Short Introduction (very Short Introductions)

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The Marquis De Sade: A Very Short Introduction (very Short Introductions)
John Phillips
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OKMS1K

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