h2o biografia dell'acquaTitle: A biography of water H2O

Author: Philip Ball

Publisher: Bur

The unique chemical formula that everyone knows is H2O, that of water: The most common substance on Earth, necessary condition, source and matrix of life. In the ancient myths of creation in the beginning was the water and the mythic and symbolic value is very much alive in all cultures. In this ‘biografia’, drawn with scientific precision and lightness of touch, l’acqua, though stripped of all its symbolic association with the soul, the purity, life, youth, fertility and motherhood, reduced to a chemical element and geological, continues to exert its fascination. Since the formation of atoms of hydrogen and oxygen to the early Universe to the presence of water in comets or planets and moons in the Solar System, from the flood of primordial 4 billion years ago that gave rise to the oceans geological risks looming on the near future, by different types of ice (at least 14) all’enigma dell’acqua ‘anomala’, the world explored reserves in H2O surprises and mysteries to be revealed, on a journey that touches on the history of science, mythology and religion, l’astronomia, geology, chemistry and physics, cell biology and ecology, to offer, through the study of water, a new perspective on life and its foundations.