Philip Ball explores the science of the branching patterns we see in nature, revealing that there is much more to these networks than meets the eye. Whether trees, snowflakes, forked lightning, or systems of arteries and veins, he explains how there are hidden rules at work that can give us extraordinary insights into the nature of life itself.

1. A Winter's Tale: The Six-Pointed Snowflake ; 2. Tenuous Monsters: Shapes Between Dimensions ; 3. Just For the Crack: Clean Breaks and Ragged Ruptures ; 4. Water Ways: Labyrinths in the Landscape ; 5. Tree and Leaf: Branches in Biology ; 6. Web Worlds: Why We're All in This Together ; 7. The Threads of the Tapestry: Principles of Pattern ; Bibliography

`Review from previous edition Wideranging, intelligent and non-dogmatic triology of books.' Martin Kemp, Times Literary Supplement `'Branches' is a slim tome, generously illustrated with photographs, charts and mathematical models.' Financial Times,

Branches is part of a trilogy of books exploring the science of how patterns arise in nature, written by award-winning science writer Philip Ball Branching patterns, networks, and fractals form some of the most exquisite patterns in the natural world - from minute and delicate branching crystals and plants, to the giant structure of the Devil's Causeway, and the overall shape of animal communities Explains how simple mathematical and physical rules can spontaneously give rise to large-scale and complex branching structures, and how this understanding has given us a new insights Learn what we may be able to know from the formation of networks in the animal world

Philip Ball is a freelance writer and a consultant editor for Nature, where he previously worked as an editor for physical sciences. He is a regular commentator in the scientific and popular media on science and its interactions with art, history and culture. His ten books on scientific subjects include The Self-Made Tapestry: Pattern Formation in Nature, H2O: A Biography of Water, The Devil's Doctor: Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science, and Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads To Another, which won the 2005 Aventis Prize for Science Books. He was awarded the 2006 James T. Grady - James H. Stack award by the American Chemical Society for interpreting chemistry for the public. Philip studied chemistry at Oxford and holds a doctorate in physics from the University of Bristol. His latest book The Music Instinct published in February 2010.

Branches is part of a trilogy of books exploring the science of how patterns arise in nature, written by award-winning science writer Philip Ball Branching patterns, networks, and fractals form some of the most exquisite patterns in the natural world - from minute and delicate branching crystals and plants, to the giant structure of the Devil's Causeway, and the overall shape of animal communities Explains how simple mathematical and physical rules can spontaneously give rise to large-scale and complex branching structures, and how this understanding has given us a new insights Learn what we may be able to know from the formation of networks in the animal world