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Invisible : the dangerous allure of the unseen / Philip Ball.

by Ball, Philip, 1962-

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The University of Chicago Press, 2015.

View the book talk - Philip Ball: "Invisible" on YouTube.

9780226238890 (hc.)

320 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

"Originally published by Bodley Head, 2013"--Title-page verso.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [283]-310) and index.

Why we disappear -- Occult forces -- Fear of obscurity -- Rays that bridge worlds -- Worlds without end -- All in the mind -- The people who can't be seen -- Vanishing point -- Bedazzled and confused -- Unseen at last?

If offered the chance - by cloak, spell or superpower - to be invisible, who wouldn't want to give it a try? We are drawn to the idea of stealthy voyeurism and the ability to conceal our own acts, but as desirable as it may seem, invisibility is also dangerous. It is not just an optical phenomenon, but a condition full of ethical questions. As science writer Philip Ball reveals in this book, the story of invisibility is not so much a matter of how it might be achieved but of why we want it and what we would do with it.

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