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The Nature of Matter: Understanding the Physical World
Matter is the raw material of the universe. Discover how the immense variety of matter - stars, mountains, plants, people - is generated by a limited number of chemical elements that combine in simple, well-defined ways. Consider carbon, a relatively common atom with many faces: diamond, which is the hardest known mineral; graphite, which is among the softest known substances; and carbon nanotubes, which are 300 times stronger than steel and have remarkable electrical properties.
In the 24 engaging lectures of The Nature of Matter, no scientific background is needed to appreciate such miracles of everyday life as a bouncing rubber ball or water's astonishing power to dissolve. Moreover, the study of matter has led directly to such inventions as semiconductor circuits for computers, new fabrics for clothes, and powerful adhesives for medicine and industry. These discoveries were hard won by scientific sleuths, but we can all sit back and enjoy the details - just as we delight in the solution to a good detective story. Since prehistoric times, knowledge of materials has driven the development of civilization. The Stone Age was succeeded by the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, the Industrial Age, and now the age of silicon - the element that is the basis of the semiconductor revolution.
Where will new methods and materials take us next? Professor Ball notes that the "fun part about being a chemist is that we still have lots of combinations of these raw materials to explore". Join this outstanding teacher and researcher on this exciting journey of discovery into the substance of everyday life.
In the 24 engaging lectures of The Nature of Matter, no scientific background is needed to appreciate such miracles of everyday life as a bouncing rubber ball or water's astonishing power to dissolve. Moreover, the study of matter has led directly to such inventions as semiconductor circuits for computers, new fabrics for clothes, and powerful adhesives for medicine and industry. These discoveries were hard won by scientific sleuths, but we can all sit back and enjoy the details - just as we delight in the solution to a good detective story. Since prehistoric times, knowledge of materials has driven the development of civilization. The Stone Age was succeeded by the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, the Industrial Age, and now the age of silicon - the element that is the basis of the semiconductor revolution.
Where will new methods and materials take us next? Professor Ball notes that the "fun part about being a chemist is that we still have lots of combinations of these raw materials to explore". Join this outstanding teacher and researcher on this exciting journey of discovery into the substance of everyday life.
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Published January 1, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
December 12, 2017
Can you be in love with a lecture series? I mean really in love, releasing all the dopamine and oxytocin-- smack dab into that nucleus accumbens-- that you release when falling in love with a human being? If so, then I am in love with this lecture series. I felt the same way about John Kricher's Ecological Planet lecture series. Maybe if it hadn't been so long since I had taken a chemistry or biology class, I would have liked this series but not loved it. There is simply nothing better in life than thinking about how matter, which makes up everything we will ever see, works. It's always magical to me. It doesn't matter how many times I learn about it -- most of this wasn't new to me, and if you have had a few courses in chem, bio, and biochem it won't be that new to you -- it blows my mind every time. I make new connections in the old material. I turn it all over and over and over in my brain and feel a continual deep sense of awe. I tried as long as I could to not finish this series because I will miss it like I would miss an old friend who moved away.
All the matter you will ever encounter is governed by the same fundamental laws of physics. David Ball put together 24 marvelous lectures to bring the magic of those laws to life. You don't need to have any background in the sciences. All that is needed is a curious mind.
Lecture series starts a bit slow. Don't give up. It gets better with each lecture.
Some questions raised by this series:
What do we know about the matter that makes up our world and how did we come to know it? What advances arose each time we discovered new elements and how to take advantage of these new elements?
Why does the term, "Shape determines function," matter and why is so awesome? (Chemicals bond in predictable ways, using simple rules. The shape of each element and each form determines how it will interact with other matter. This matters on the tiniest level possible and the largest level possible. For example, on a microscopic level, receptors reside on cells and interact with ligands (something that wants to fit into that receptor). Ligands and receptors fit together (have that have affinity for each other) when they are the right shape. You can picture a receptor meeting its soulmate ligand and saying, "You are just my type!" When they bond, because they are the right shape, they have reactions that occur on much bigger levels. The bonding of ligand with a receptor might dictate how you bond with a lover, whether you laugh or cry. On a less emotional level, you can think about how the molecules in a vitamin or a pill of medicine mimic the very shape of food or a brain chemical that can kill pain. David Ball does a wonderful job of explaining how chemist mimic different elements in food or in the brain. So good! The shape of things, big and small, allows the interactions of all the matter --which, again, is everything you will ever see in the physical world-- to occur. It is what makes everything happen, all around you, all the time.)
Why do balls bounce? (It's as simple as the shape of the molecules inside them. Balls are made of long polymers. It is simply that aspect which makes them have a rubbery surface. Rubbery surfaces bounce).
What does sugar have to do with your blood type?
How does electricity conduct and what makes a superconductors?
Why do some materials that have the same chemical formula turn out to be so different-- like how carbon can make a hard, shiny diamond or a soft, flaky graphite writing tool? Same chemical makeup but very different products. (This was the only lecture I was a tiny bit disappointed in. Pressure and temperature are some of the best magic tricks planet Earth has to shape the same elements into different products. I felt there could have been a little more awe displayed in these lectures).
How did the discovery of different materials like bronze or metal shape the building of civilization? How might they have brought about agriculture?
How did our discoveries help advance the face of medicine?
This series was filled with wonderful histories that were sprinkled throughout in just the right amount. Sometimes the histories get in the way or serve to force a tangent that steals your focus and is hard to come back from. Every history included served to really drive home the nature of matter. Absolutely wonderful series!
All the matter you will ever encounter is governed by the same fundamental laws of physics. David Ball put together 24 marvelous lectures to bring the magic of those laws to life. You don't need to have any background in the sciences. All that is needed is a curious mind.
Lecture series starts a bit slow. Don't give up. It gets better with each lecture.
Some questions raised by this series:
What do we know about the matter that makes up our world and how did we come to know it? What advances arose each time we discovered new elements and how to take advantage of these new elements?
Why does the term, "Shape determines function," matter and why is so awesome? (Chemicals bond in predictable ways, using simple rules. The shape of each element and each form determines how it will interact with other matter. This matters on the tiniest level possible and the largest level possible. For example, on a microscopic level, receptors reside on cells and interact with ligands (something that wants to fit into that receptor). Ligands and receptors fit together (have that have affinity for each other) when they are the right shape. You can picture a receptor meeting its soulmate ligand and saying, "You are just my type!" When they bond, because they are the right shape, they have reactions that occur on much bigger levels. The bonding of ligand with a receptor might dictate how you bond with a lover, whether you laugh or cry. On a less emotional level, you can think about how the molecules in a vitamin or a pill of medicine mimic the very shape of food or a brain chemical that can kill pain. David Ball does a wonderful job of explaining how chemist mimic different elements in food or in the brain. So good! The shape of things, big and small, allows the interactions of all the matter --which, again, is everything you will ever see in the physical world-- to occur. It is what makes everything happen, all around you, all the time.)
Why do balls bounce? (It's as simple as the shape of the molecules inside them. Balls are made of long polymers. It is simply that aspect which makes them have a rubbery surface. Rubbery surfaces bounce).
What does sugar have to do with your blood type?
How does electricity conduct and what makes a superconductors?
Why do some materials that have the same chemical formula turn out to be so different-- like how carbon can make a hard, shiny diamond or a soft, flaky graphite writing tool? Same chemical makeup but very different products. (This was the only lecture I was a tiny bit disappointed in. Pressure and temperature are some of the best magic tricks planet Earth has to shape the same elements into different products. I felt there could have been a little more awe displayed in these lectures).
How did the discovery of different materials like bronze or metal shape the building of civilization? How might they have brought about agriculture?
How did our discoveries help advance the face of medicine?
This series was filled with wonderful histories that were sprinkled throughout in just the right amount. Sometimes the histories get in the way or serve to force a tangent that steals your focus and is hard to come back from. Every history included served to really drive home the nature of matter. Absolutely wonderful series!
December 3, 2019
I have nothing but awestruck wonder for these lectures. The world is made up of stuff that follows a set of rules and behaves with rules based on principles. People like Professor Ball put the pieces together and show why the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Unfortunately, for me I only understand the world abstracted into units of translational symmetries that are invariant to a host of convenient transformations (abstractly). The Professor sees the world as it is and explains it always with the proper context, relationships and relativity regarding their place in space and time (concretely).
I loved getting myself out of my comfort zone; out from the world of ideas and the abstract and learning about how the real world works. I’m in awe, no wait, more properly envious of those who can understand these lectures and were able to think of them as familiar or simple or basic. Every single lecture blew me away, and I can say I understood each and everyone as I was listening to them and probably could write a page or two on what they meant to me and how I learned things I had no idea about, but when it comes to reality I find it at best only fleeting and must just remain grateful for the memory of the experience of having listen to these lectures and albeit only briefly understanding what they meant as he was delivering these lectures.
By all means, if you already know this stuff go ahead and listen to these lectures; they will teach you different ways of seeing the world from what you already thought you knew. Or if you were like me and know almost nothing about what the world is made of or how it works together and have no real ability to go beyond your own ignorance of the real world, go ahead and listen to these awe inspiring lectures all the while knowing you can only experience the wonder about the material world as your listening to them and it’s courses like this one which can partially remove the veil that covers your eyes, or at least for me I can say I am just a tad less ignorant than I was before having listened to these lectures.
I loved getting myself out of my comfort zone; out from the world of ideas and the abstract and learning about how the real world works. I’m in awe, no wait, more properly envious of those who can understand these lectures and were able to think of them as familiar or simple or basic. Every single lecture blew me away, and I can say I understood each and everyone as I was listening to them and probably could write a page or two on what they meant to me and how I learned things I had no idea about, but when it comes to reality I find it at best only fleeting and must just remain grateful for the memory of the experience of having listen to these lectures and albeit only briefly understanding what they meant as he was delivering these lectures.
By all means, if you already know this stuff go ahead and listen to these lectures; they will teach you different ways of seeing the world from what you already thought you knew. Or if you were like me and know almost nothing about what the world is made of or how it works together and have no real ability to go beyond your own ignorance of the real world, go ahead and listen to these awe inspiring lectures all the while knowing you can only experience the wonder about the material world as your listening to them and it’s courses like this one which can partially remove the veil that covers your eyes, or at least for me I can say I am just a tad less ignorant than I was before having listened to these lectures.
June 22, 2017
There may not be many people who want to listen to audiobook lectures on chemistry, physics, and materials science, but I loved traveling up, down, and across the periodic table with the delightfully enthusiastic and lucid professor, David W. Ball. I do love to learn why and how more than almost anything else, but I also believe that such knowledge makes us better citizens, at some risk of encouraging pompous pedantry and showing off. Dr. Ball filled gaps in my knowledge of science that have existed since high school and university, and introduced new phenomena, like buckyballs, carbon nanotubes, quantum dots, and graphene, that weren't around then. I am very grateful, and I recommend this fine work from the The Great Courses Plus library of over 800 works.
April 22, 2025
This course starts with theory but it’s mainly descriptive. It stresses our use of chemicals but has little on toxicity or the environment. I find it dull.
November 27, 2018
This is a Great Courses lecture series. By the course title, I was expecting more about sub-particles, the nucleus, atoms and molecules. There was a discussion of such, and it was good, but it was not extensive. Most of the course is about Ball’s specialty, chemistry. The beginning lectures were largely impenetrable (too technical). The lectures that followed were about specific chemicals and their varying combinations and their relevance to daily life.
Ball frames this chemistry discussion with “how the interactions of matter, energy and entropy govern the nature of the universe.” Matter is that which takes up space. Chemistry is how matter interacts with other matter. Energy is the ability to move matter and comes from various sources (electrons, physical force, gravity). It moves along a gradient, from high to low, and disperses itself that way. Entropy is a measure of the distribution of energy and, “all things being equal…the universe prefers high entropy, or the wider distribution of energy.”
It’s interesting to entertain how life might fit into these cosmic components. Life is matter that moves, but it is purposeful movement. As life seeks food energy, does it overcome entropy that way? Is purposeful movement, a need to be free to seek food energy and otherwise do what it takes to survive, relevant to our notion of freedom (and why we care so much about it)? Does the energy intensity gradient apply to pain and pleasure (i.e., when pain is high, there is movement; when pain is satisfied there is pleasure in Schopenhauer’s sense and energy is quiescent)? Unless we regard life in a non-material way, and without getting into the cosmic self – cosmic consciousness realm of inquiry, then tying such life-related questions to physics and chemistry seems like a fair exercise.
Ball frames this chemistry discussion with “how the interactions of matter, energy and entropy govern the nature of the universe.” Matter is that which takes up space. Chemistry is how matter interacts with other matter. Energy is the ability to move matter and comes from various sources (electrons, physical force, gravity). It moves along a gradient, from high to low, and disperses itself that way. Entropy is a measure of the distribution of energy and, “all things being equal…the universe prefers high entropy, or the wider distribution of energy.”
It’s interesting to entertain how life might fit into these cosmic components. Life is matter that moves, but it is purposeful movement. As life seeks food energy, does it overcome entropy that way? Is purposeful movement, a need to be free to seek food energy and otherwise do what it takes to survive, relevant to our notion of freedom (and why we care so much about it)? Does the energy intensity gradient apply to pain and pleasure (i.e., when pain is high, there is movement; when pain is satisfied there is pleasure in Schopenhauer’s sense and energy is quiescent)? Unless we regard life in a non-material way, and without getting into the cosmic self – cosmic consciousness realm of inquiry, then tying such life-related questions to physics and chemistry seems like a fair exercise.
November 20, 2025
The Nature of Matter: Understanding the Physical World by David W. Ball is a compelling addition to the "Great Courses" lecture series. Delivered by a seasoned chemist, this series offers a refreshing perspective within the popular science genre, particularly for readers with knowledge slightly beyond the high school level.
Through the lens of chemistry, Ball explores the field of material science, delving into fundamental principles of chemistry and quantum mechanics. He explains how atoms and molecules are formed and bound together by various forces, providing a clear foundation for understanding the structure of matter.
What sets this series apart is Ball's engaging discussion of the materials that surround us in everyday life. By examining how chemical forces operate in real-world contexts, he demonstrates key concepts while offering practical insights into both natural and synthetic materials. These discussions not only reinforce the reader's understanding of the scientific principles but also spark curiosity about how future materials might be engineered.
Unlike many popular science works authored by physicists and centered on topics like elementary particles or cosmology, Ball's lectures stand out for their distinct chemical perspective. He also skillfully uses chemistry as a bridge to explore overlapping themes in physics and biology, broadening the scope of scientific understanding.
Overall, The Nature of Matter is an excellent resource for anyone with a high school education who is eager to deepen their grasp of science. Ball's accessible and informative style makes complex ideas understandable, making this lecture series a valuable contribution to science education.
Through the lens of chemistry, Ball explores the field of material science, delving into fundamental principles of chemistry and quantum mechanics. He explains how atoms and molecules are formed and bound together by various forces, providing a clear foundation for understanding the structure of matter.
What sets this series apart is Ball's engaging discussion of the materials that surround us in everyday life. By examining how chemical forces operate in real-world contexts, he demonstrates key concepts while offering practical insights into both natural and synthetic materials. These discussions not only reinforce the reader's understanding of the scientific principles but also spark curiosity about how future materials might be engineered.
Unlike many popular science works authored by physicists and centered on topics like elementary particles or cosmology, Ball's lectures stand out for their distinct chemical perspective. He also skillfully uses chemistry as a bridge to explore overlapping themes in physics and biology, broadening the scope of scientific understanding.
Overall, The Nature of Matter is an excellent resource for anyone with a high school education who is eager to deepen their grasp of science. Ball's accessible and informative style makes complex ideas understandable, making this lecture series a valuable contribution to science education.
April 18, 2021
Some visual aids make the DVD more valuable than the audio alone, but the DVD is not absolutely necessary.
Lectures:
1. Matter, Energy, and Entropy
2. The Nature of Light and Matter
3. A New Theory of Matter
4. The Structure of Atoms and Molecules
5. The Stellar Atom-Building Machine
6. The Amazing Periodic Table
7. Ionic versus Covalent Matter
8. The Versatile Element: Carbon
9. The Strange Behavior of Water
10. Matter in Solution
11. Interactions: Adhesion and Cohesion
12. Surface Energy: The Interfaces among Us
13. The Eloquent Chemistry of Carbon Compounds
14. Materials for Body Implants
15. The Chemistry of Food and Drink
16. Fuels and Explosives
17. The Air We Breathe
18. Materials: The Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages
19. Again and Again: Polymers
20. Recycling Materials
21. Resistance Is Futile: Superconductors
22. Resistance Is Useful: Semiconductors
23. Out of Many, One: Composites
24. The Future of Materials
Lectures:
1. Matter, Energy, and Entropy
2. The Nature of Light and Matter
3. A New Theory of Matter
4. The Structure of Atoms and Molecules
5. The Stellar Atom-Building Machine
6. The Amazing Periodic Table
7. Ionic versus Covalent Matter
8. The Versatile Element: Carbon
9. The Strange Behavior of Water
10. Matter in Solution
11. Interactions: Adhesion and Cohesion
12. Surface Energy: The Interfaces among Us
13. The Eloquent Chemistry of Carbon Compounds
14. Materials for Body Implants
15. The Chemistry of Food and Drink
16. Fuels and Explosives
17. The Air We Breathe
18. Materials: The Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages
19. Again and Again: Polymers
20. Recycling Materials
21. Resistance Is Futile: Superconductors
22. Resistance Is Useful: Semiconductors
23. Out of Many, One: Composites
24. The Future of Materials
April 21, 2018
This course was ok, but it seemed more like a survey course than a science course. A lot of information, not much depth. The physics and astronomy courses that the teaching company produces are much better
April 25, 2022
A 12hr audio book. If you are into science, more specific chemistry and base physics, then this book is amazing. I do not agree with everything on the authors opinions on some political stuff but the science behind it was great. I wish I had a teacher like this.
March 9, 2023
Expected a physics course and the first few lectures are just that. But it is actually about material science and explains a lot of chemical stuff and how different materials like glues, food and so one work.
August 17, 2019
this is so cool ,
I thought the bit about surface tension and ADhesion/cohesion was super well described. I also love how it starts from the Quantum realm.
I thought the bit about surface tension and ADhesion/cohesion was super well described. I also love how it starts from the Quantum realm.
October 6, 2021
I've never actually taken chemistry so this was a fun introduction.
May 22, 2022
Absolutely fascinating. Just read Charlene’s review below.
February 20, 2016
This introduction to materials science includes some introductory chemistry, a consideration of certain important elements (such as oxygen and carbon) and molecules (eg water and carbon comounds), and applications in various fields such as food, fuels, polymers and semiconductors. Dr Ball is a very personable lecturer who takes an engineering approach rather than a theoretical one.
April 21, 2016
I truly enjoy the subject, science, but I found it hard to engage with all the lectures. The lecture on water was superb but I struggled with his explanations of polymers and composites in some of the other lectures. About half were really enjoyable and the other half were hard to follow and not as memorable.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews