9 May 2015

Philip Ball: invisibility and curiosity

From Saturday Morning, 9:15 am on 9 May 2015

Ball Philip c Richard HaughtonScience writer Philip Ball was editor for Nature magazine for over 20 years, and is the author of a number of books, including Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything (2013, Vintage), Serving the Reich: The Struggle for the Soul of Physics Under Hitler (2014, Vintage), and Invisibility: the Dangerous Allure of the Unseen (Bodley Head).

Philip Ball talks to Kim Hill about the ways social media influences the ways invisibility - or anonymity - and morality interact; the learning which has seen 'magic' evolve into science, and the understanding that the more we know, the more we know we don't know... and how far away are we from having an invisibility cloak?

Philip Ball will visit New Zealand for three events at the 2015 Auckland Writers Festival (13-17 May), and give two Royal Society of New Zealand talks: Bright Earth: the Invention of Colour (21 May, Wellington), and Invisibility: a Cultural History (22 May, Christchurch)
Photo: Richard Haughton.