Inventions History

La espléndida biografía de Alexander von Humboldt, el héroe perdido de la ciencia y padre de la ecología.

In The Alchemy of Us, scientist and science writer Ainissa Ramirez examines eight inventions - clocks, steel rails, copper communication cables, photographic film, light bulbs, hard disks, scientific labware, and silicon chips - and reveals how they shaped the human experience. Ramirez tells the stories of the woman who sold time, the inventor who inspired Edison, and the hotheaded undertaker whose invention pointed the way to the computer.

Why are there restaurants? Why would anybody consider eating alongside perfect strangers in a loud and crowded room to be an enjoyable pastime? To find the answer, Rebecca Spang takes us back to France in the eighteenth century, when a restaurant was not a place to eat but a quasi-medicinal bouillon not unlike the bone broths of today.

Inventions - Past, Present, and the Future takes readers on an extraordinary journey through humanity’s relentless pursuit of innovation. From the earliest breakthroughs—like the mastery of fire and the invention of the wheel—to today’s interconnected digital world, this book explores the pivotal creations that have defined civilizations across millennia. Each era, from the agricultural advancements of ancient times to the Industrial Revolution’s machinery and the modern digital age, is examined for its transformative inventions. The narrative not only celebrates human ingenuity ...

Our ability to think about the future is one of the most powerful tools at our disposal. In The Invention of Tomorrow, cognitive scientists Thomas Suddendorf, Jonathan Redshaw, and Adam Bulley argue that its emergence transformed humans from unremarkable primates to creatures that hold the destiny of the planet in their hands. Drawing on their own cutting-edge research, the authors break down the science of foresight, showing us where it comes from, how it works, and how it made our world.

With exclusive access to Elon, his family, and his friends, this book traces Elon's journey from a kid in South Africa to a young man in the United States, his dramatic technical inventions, and his world-changing companies. Elon has sparked new levels of innovation in the world, and this book gives young listeners a detailed but fast-paced look at his story.

Since 2010, Toronto's headlines have been consumed by the outrageous personal foibles and government-slashing, anti-urbanist policies of Mayor Rob Ford. But the heated debate at City Hall has obscured a bigger, decade-long narrative of Toronto's ascendance as a mature global city. Some Great Idea traces how post-amalgamation, and under three very different mayors, Toronto managed to so quickly oscillate from one extreme to another, and how the city might proceed from here.

Soul Machine takes us back to the origins of modernity, a time when a crisis in religious authority and the scientific revolution led to searching questions about the nature of human inner life. This is the story of how a new concept - the mind - emerged as a potential solution, one that was part soul and part machine but fully neither.

Long before the specter of terrorism haunted the public imagination, a serial bomber stalked the streets of 1950s New York. The race to catch him would give birth to a new science called criminal profiling. Grand Central, Penn Station, Radio City Music Hall - for almost two decades, no place was safe from the man who signed his anonymous letters "FP" and left his lethal devices in phone booths, storage lockers, even tucked into the plush seats of movie theaters.

A possible genius, a smidgen of madness, a twist of science, and an invention that very nearly changed the world - all collide in a giddy, unbelievably true mystery set in turn-of-the-century Paris.

One day in 1882, Thomas Edison flipped a switch that lit up lower Manhattan with incandescent light and changed the way people live ever after. The electric light bulb was only one of thousands of Edison’s inventions, which include the phonograph and the kinetoscope, an early precursor to the movie camera. As a boy, observing a robin catch a worm and then take flight, he fed a playmate a mixture of worms and water to see if she could fly! An accessible, appealing biography of the inventor.

To solve one of the great mathematical problems of his day, Alan Turing proposed an imaginary computer. Then, attempting to break a Nazi code during World War II, he successfully designed and built one, thus ensuring the Allied victory. Turing became a champion of artificial intelligence, but his work was cut short. As an openly gay man at a time when homosexuality was illegal in England, he was convicted and forced to undergo a humiliating "treatment" that may have led to his suicide.

A worldwide race is on to perfect the next engine of economic growth, the advanced lithium-ion battery. It will power the electric car, relieve global warming, and catapult the winner into a new era of economic and political mastery. Can the United States win? Steve LeVine was granted unprecedented access to a secret federal laboratory outside Chicago, where a group of geniuses is trying to solve this next monumental task of physics. But these scientists - almost all foreign born - are not alone.

We all know that encouraging curiosity and learning is crucial for our children's development, but it isn't always easy. Did you know that children who play while learning are more likely to retain the information they were taught? You don't have to sacrifice fun to encourage learning. That's why we created "Interesting Facts For Curious Kids" filled with challenging questions, fun facts, and interesting stories, your kids (and family!) will be entertained and learning for hours!

Welcome to "2024 Technology Inventions and Ideas", a microlearning book that will keep you up to date with tech innovation. Whether you need to for work or are simply curious, understanding how technology is changing has become increasingly interesting and important to many of us. This book can be your guide to understanding the most exciting and engaging technologies of 2024. We’ve presented it in a way that’s easy to digest and apply to your everyday life.

The secrets of science meet the drama of the high seas. Amir D. Aczel - the distinguished science writer behind God's Equation and Mystery of the Aleph - turns detective as he uncovers the fascinating story of the invention of the compass.

From the acclaimed biographer of explorers Magellan, Columbus, and Francis Drake comes a unique exploration of life and influence of Jules Verne, the novelist whose mind spun the greatest adventures ever told and whose daring and prescient imagination sparked a lasting transformation of modern society and technology, inspiring everyone from J.R.R. Tolkien to Kurt Vonnegut to Jeff Bezos.

The eBook discusses the remarkable history and evolution of one of humanity's most transformative inventions—paper. It begins with the life and achievements of Cai Lun, the visionary Chinese inventor credited with revolutionizing the papermaking process around 105 CE during the Eastern Han Dynasty. His innovative technique, which involved blending natural materials such as tree bark, hemp, rags, and fishing nets to create a versatile and accessible medium, laid the foundation for the spread of knowledge, culture, and communication across the world. The narrative explores the historical ...

Although Orville and Wilbur Wright are celebrated today as heroes for their revolutionary contributions to science and engineering - they are acknowledged as the first men to successfully achieve powered, piloted flight - their success was hard-earned. In fact, it took the self-taught engineers years of work and dozens of crashes before they managed a single 12-second flight! In this first installment of the brand new Epic Fails series, Ben Thompson and Erik Slader take listeners through the Wright brothers' many mishaps and misadventures as they paved the way for modern aviation.

Technology rules us as much as laws do. It shapes the legal, social, and ethical environments in which we act. Every time we cross a street, drive a car, or go to the doctor, we submit to the silent power of technology. Yet, much of the time, the influence of technology on our lives goes unchallenged by citizens and our elected representatives. Our embrace of novel technological pathways, Sheila Jasanoff shows, leads to a complex interplay among technology, ethics, and human rights.