Life's Matrix: A Biography of Water

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating, but error prone
Review: 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

Rating:
Summary: science for us non-scientists
Review: Philip Ball, a precocious young editor and writer at the British science journal Nature, with whose work I was previously unfamiliar, is apparently the hot new thing among popular science writers. Based on the evidence of this book, it's easy to see why folks like him so much.

Ball's thesis and method are apparent from the title. He sets out to demonstrate how central water is to our existence and he does so by tracing it's life history from the Big Bang right up to today. The broad arc of his story allows him to demonstrate a truly remarkable command of disparate topics, ranging from Cosmology to History, Geology to Mythology, and Chemistry to Politics. For someone with my embarrassingly limited science background, there was a little too much theory to absorb in one reading, but any technical confusion is more than made up for by the wealth of non-scientific information he provides. The book is packed with colorful anecdotes, interesting vignettes and fascinating factoids. If it's too much to say that you learn something new on every page, it certainly seemed to be true.

If I have one complaint with the book, it is that Ball has done such a good job of demonstrating how ubiquitous and remarkable water is, that by the time he gets to the dire environmental warnings about our wastefulness that conclude the book, it's sort of hard to take them too seriously. This section also tends to turn the biography into a bit of a melodramatic cliffhanger. He can hardly be blamed for not knowing water's ultimate fate, but there is a certain lack of closure to his tale.

There are a number of popular science writers I particularly recommend: Jacob Bronowski (The Ascent of Man), Daniel Boorstin (The Discoverers), Lewis Thomas (The Lives of a Cell : Notes of a Biology Watcher), Carl Sagan (The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence ), Richard Rhodes (The Making of the Atomic Bomb), Stephen Hawking (A Brief History of Time: from the Big Bang to Black Holes) and Thomas Kuhn (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions) have all written classics and among more recent authors Timothy Ferris (Coming of Age in the Milky Way) and David Quammen (The Flight of the Iguana : A Sidelong View of Science and Nature) are especially good. I don't know that Philip Ball belongs in such exalted company already, but I'm certainly interested to see what he writes about next.

GRADE: B+

Rating:
Summary: What exactly is water?
Review: This ages old question is probed by Nature writer and consulting editor Philip Ball is his latest book Life's Matrix: A Biography of Water. In this humourous and evocative account, he addresses aspects from the origin and folklore of water to its life-giving properties at the cellular level to ecological imperatives necessary to sustain it as our most fundamental natural resource. In this pilgrimage, he does not merely point out the landmarks along the way but offers a staggeringly eclectic and fresh perspective on this common (even pervasive) substance so central to our existence. Philip Ball offers intellectual entertainment of the highest order--a horn of plenty...the reader will never regard water in the same way again!

Rating:
Summary: Water, Water Everywhere
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Water, Water Everywhere
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Thorough, interesting and multifaceted
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Thorough, interesting and multifaceted
Review: 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.