Hugh Aldersey-Williams (born 1959) is a British author and journalist. Aldersey-Williams was educated at

Highgate School Highgate School, formally Sir Roger Cholmeley's School at Highgate, is an English co-educational, fee-charging, independent day school, founded in 1565 in Highgate, London, England. It educates over 1,400 pupils in three sections – Highgate ...

and studied the

natural science Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...

s at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

. His several books discuss issues surrounding natural and man-made designs. He has curated exhibitions at the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

as well as the

Wellcome Collection Wellcome Collection is a museum and library based at 183 Euston Road, London, displaying a mixture of medical artefacts and original artworks exploring "ideas about the connections between medicine, life and art". Founded in 2007, the Wellcome C ...

. Aldersey-Williams is perhaps best known for his 2011 book '' Periodic Tales'', which ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

'' described as "a paean to the building blocks of matter". The book () takes a comprehensive look through world history to detail where, how, and why humanity discovered the elements. It also received praise from ''

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...

'', which labelled it "lucid" and "enjoyable". In October 2015 he co-curated an exhibition based on the book at

Compton Verney Art Gallery Compton Verney Art Gallery is an art gallery at Compton Verney, England. It is housed in Compton Verney House, a restored Grade I listed 18th-century mansion surrounded by of parkland which was landscaped by Lancelot 'Capability' Brown. Overvi ...

, ''Periodic Tales: The Art of the Elements'', exhibiting predominantly contemporary art works and focusing on the relationship between artistic objects and the elemental materials that go into their making. Aldersey-Williams contributed an essay on

Sir Thomas Browne Sir Thomas Browne (; 19 October 1605 – 19 October 1682) was an English polymath and author of varied works which reveal his wide learning in diverse fields including science and medicine, religion and the esoteric. His writings display a ...

to The Society for Curious Thought.

Background

Aldersey-Williams has a lifetime

hobby A hobby is considered to be a regular activity that is done for enjoyment, typically during one's leisure time. Hobbies include collecting themed items and objects, engaging in creative and artistic pursuits, playing Sport, sports, or pursu ...

, since his teenage days, of collecting samples of the elements and setting them up in his home.

Books

* ''The Most Beautiful Molecule: The Discovery of the Buckyball'',

John Wiley & Sons John Wiley & Sons, Inc., commonly known as Wiley (), is an American multinational publishing company founded in 1807 that focuses on academic publishing and instructional materials. The company produces books, journals, and encyclopedias, in p ...

, 1995 * ''Zoomorphic: New Animal Architecture'', Collins Design, 2003 * '' Periodic Tales: A Cultural History of the Elements, from Arsenic to Zinc'',

Ecco Press Ecco is a New York-based publishing imprint of HarperCollins. It was founded in 1971 by Daniel Halpern as an independent publishing company; Publishers Weekly described it as "one of America's best-known literary houses." In 1999 Ecco was acquired ...

, 2011 * ''Anatomies: A Cultural History of the Human Body'', W. W. Norton & Company, 2013 * ''In Search of

: The Life and Afterlife of the Seventeenth Century's Most Inquiring Mind'', W. W. Norton & Company, 2015 * ''Tide: The Science and Lore of the Greatest Force on Earth'',

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

, 2016 * ''Dutch Light:

Christiaan Huygens Christiaan Huygens, Lord of Zeelhem, ( , , ; also spelled Huyghens; la, Hugenius; 14 April 1629 – 8 July 1695) was a Dutch mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor, who is regarded as one of the greatest scientists of ...

and the Making of Science in Europe'',

Pan Macmillan Pan Books is a publishing imprint (trade name), imprint that first became active in the 1940s and is now part of the United Kingdom, British-based Macmillan Publishers, owned by the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group of Germany. Pan Books b ...

, 2020

References

External links

Official Website - hughalderseywilliams.com
Alumni of the University of Cambridge People educated at Highgate School English male journalists English science writers Historians of science Living people People associated with the Victoria and Albert Museum British science journalists 1959 births {{UK-nonfiction-writer-stub

Background

Books

See also

References

External links