Curiosity : how science became interested in everything / Philip Ball.

Originally published by Bodley Head, 2012.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 419-453) and index.

Old questions -- The academies of secrets -- The theatre of curiosity -- The hunt of Pan -- Professors of everything -- More things in Heaven and Earth -- Cosmic disharmonies -- The first men in the moon -- Nature free and bound -- On the head of a pin -- The light of nature -- Chasing elephants -- Professional virtuosi, or curiosity served cold.

Explores the evolution of curiosity from stigma to scientific stimulus through a look at the inventions and discoveries made between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, and details how curiosity functions in science today.

Looking closely at the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, Ball vividly brings to life the age when modern science began, a time that spans the lives of Galileo and Isaac Newton. In this entertaining and illuminating account of the rise of science as we know it, Ball tells of scientists both legendary and lesser known, from Copernicus and Kepler to Robert Boyle, as well as the inventions and technologies that were inspired by curiosity itself, such as the telescope and the microscope. The so-called Scientific Revolution is often told as a story of great geniuses illuminating the world with flashes of inspiration. But Curiosity reveals a more complex story, in which the liberation--and subsequent taming--of curiosity was linked to magic, religion, literature, travel, trade, and empire. Ball also asks what has become of curiosity today: how it functions in science, how it is spun and packaged for consumption, how well it is being sustained, and how the changing shape of science influences the kinds of questions it may continue to ask.