For the past 20 years, Philip Ball has been writing about science. He is indefatigable, polymathic and conscientious. He is also good and, project by project, his books are getting better.
Invisible, Ball's eighteenth offering, uses the notion of absence, apparent absence or hidden presence to unpack trunks of pop science treats. There are chapters on microscopy and camouflage, X-rays and stage magic, nods to the uncanniness of the internet, and a glance at the mischievous delights of experimental psychology.
It hardly matters that there is little new here. Familiarity can, after all, camouflage truths, and Invisible turns out to be more clever than it appears.
Our fascination with invisibility, Ball says, begins in childhood. Almost all of us entertain invisible friends and pets at some point. Children consider themselves truly visible only when they are exchanging glances. Without a corroborative gaze, a child's descriptions of itself become oddly disembodied.
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