Hugh Aldersey-Williams (born 1959) is a British author and journalist. Aldersey-Williams was educated at Highgate School and studied the natural sciences at the University of Cambridge. His several books discuss issues surrounding natural and man-made designs. He has curated exhibitions at the Victoria and Albert Museum as well as the Wellcome Collection.^[1]

Aldersey-Williams is perhaps best known for his 2011 book Periodic Tales, which The Daily Telegraph described as "a paean to the building blocks of matter".^[1][2] The book (ISBN 9780061824722) takes a comprehensive look through world history to detail where, how, and why humanity discovered the elements. It also received praise from Kirkus Reviews, which labelled it "lucid" and "enjoyable".^[3] In October 2015 he co-curated an exhibition based on the book at Compton Verney Art Gallery, 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.^[4]

Aldersey-Williams contributed an essay on Sir Thomas Browne to The Society for Curious Thought.^[5]

Background

Aldersey-Williams has a lifetime hobby, since his teenage days, of collecting samples of the elements and setting them up in his home.^[2]

Books

• The Most Beautiful Molecule: The Discovery of the Buckyball, John Wiley & Sons, 1995
• Zoomorphic: New Animal Architecture, Collins Design, 2003
• Periodic Tales: A Cultural History of the Elements, from Arsenic to Zinc, Ecco Press, 2011
• Anatomies: A Cultural History of the Human Body, W. W. Norton & Company, 2013
• In Search of Sir Thomas Browne: 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, 2016
• Dutch Light: Christiaan Huygens and the Making of Science in Europe, Pan Macmillan, 2020