The philosophy of Robert Boyle (1627-1691) is a hot topic in early modern philosophy. Boyle was at the centre of the scientific community of 17th-century England, and an accurate view of the Enlightenment scientific revolution is impossible without recognition of the contributions that he made. Work on Boyle's philosophy is also shedding light on contemporary issues in the philosophy of science - it can help us understand the nature of scientific explanation and the role that the mechanical model of explanation plays in present-day science. Boyle's mechanical philosophy ushered in a new explanatory model for science and even though his corpuscular hypothesis failed, its failure does not entail the failure of the explanatory model of which it was an instance. Boyle on Fire demonstrates these points by examining Boyle's work concerning a method of experiment common in the seventeenth century called Fire Analysis. In the Sceptical Chymist (1661), Boyle attacks elemental theories of chemical explanation primarily by raising objections against Aristotelian and Paracelsian interpretations of fire analysis. The book reconstructs Boyle's corpuscular account of fire analysis and then compares it to these objections. This process reveals those characteristics of mechanical explanations that make them epistemologically superior to elemental theories of chemical explanation, and it is these characteristics that survive the death of the corpuscular hypothesis and have become an enduring feature of the scientific enterprise.

William Newman and Lawrence Principe reveal the hitherto hidden laboratory experiments of a famous alchemist and argue that many of the principles and practices characteristic of modern chemistry derive from alchemy.

As I sit on my mountaintop,And watch the lightning zing and popDown on a canyon or hillThe clouds looking like an anvilIm looking here, there, everywhereElectricitys in the air.

It was 11pm when I checked my email for the last time and turned off my phone for what I hoped would be forever. No running water, no car, no electricity or any of the things it powers: the internet, phone, washing machine, radio or light bulb. Just a wooden cabin, on a smallholding, by the edge of a stand of spruce. THE WAY HOME is a modern-day Walden -- an honest and lyrical account of a remarkable life lived in nature without modern technology. Mark Boyle, author of THE MONEYLESS MAN, explores the hard won joys of building a home with his bare hands, learning to make fire, collecting water from the stream, foraging and fishing. What he finds is an elemental life, one governed by the rhythms of the sun and seasons, where life and death dance in a primal landscape of blood, wood, muck, water, and fire - much the same life we have lived for most of our time on earth. Revisiting it brings a deep insight into what it means to be human at a time when the boundaries between man and machine are blurring.

London, 1680. The famous philosopher, Sir Robert Boyle, is about to demonstrate the results of his investigations of the phosphorus and its cold fire to fellows of the Royal Society and other guests. Far away at the edge of Wales an alchemist learns of the discovery and, helped by his young assistant, attempts in his own way to form the mysterious material, little suspecting that his work threatens to open the universe to the evil power of the Malevolence. Summoned by the Brains, September, the Cludydd o Maengolauseren, arrives charged with halting the Malevolence’s storm of destruction. But how? She finds herself out of her time and in a world not quite her own. Nevertheless her experience of the Malevolence tells her that she must do something. The fantastic beasts she encounters may come to her aid, if she can work out how to save them from the Cold Fire. For September, hardly any time has passed since she was trying to save Gwlad in Peter R. Ellis’ thrilling fantasy series Evil Above the Stars. Now, in the first of the September Weekes novels, she appears to be closer to home, at least in space if not time. But not everything is as she’d expect it, and she still seems to be wearing her school uniform! Combining science, fantasy and adventure, this is a novel truly worthy of the designation Speculative Fiction.