Many people know that Albert Einstein was a brilliant theoretical physicist who revolutionised modern science. What they may not know is that he only learnt to speak at four years old; that he was asked to become the President of Israel in 1952, but refused; or that he was under FBI surveillance for 22 years. This book presents an instant impression of his life with 50 irresistible facts converted into infographics to reveal the scientist behind the science.

The breathtakingly rapid pace of change in computing makes it easy to overlook the pioneers who began it all. The Universal Computer: The Road from Leibniz to Turing explores the fascinating lives, ideas, and discoveries of seven remarkable mathematicians. It tells the stories of the unsung heroes of the computer age - the logicians.

Discover the trials & triumphs of great female inventors

Astrolabe
Automatic Dishwasher
Barbie® Doll
Buffered Aspirin
COBOL
Cotton Gin
Disposable Phone
Drip Coffeemaker
Fabric Softener Sheets
Hang Glider
IV Fluids
Jell-O®
Kevlar®
Mars Rover
Nystatin
PDA (Personal Digital Assistant)
Protease Inhibitors
Rolfing
Smallpox Variolation
Space Suit
Spic & Span®
Tract Housing
Vacuum Canning
Windshield Wipers
Zig-Zag Sewing Machine
Zovirax®

and many, many more!

Reviews for Mothers of Invention by Ethlie Ann Vare and Greg Ptacek

"It’s a fascinating and gratifying book….It gives us a positive view of women’s inventiveness, from the frivolous to the noble."
–The New York Times Book Review

"It is the wide spectrum of female humanity and ability in this book that makes it an especially valuable addition to the growing popular library on the accomplishments and work lives of women."
–Los Angeles Times

"An informative collection of talent, trivia, and history, Mothers of Invention will interest most anyone. More importantly, though, it will serve to inspire girls and women of all ages. For that reason, it belongs on the shelves of schools and public libraries everywhere."
–Tampa Tribune

"Wonderful….A book to be dipped into and sampled at one’s leisure."
–The Chicago Biweekly

"This fascinating volume will find a place in the browsing sections of both adult and YA collections…recommended."
–Library Journal

One of the "Best Books for Young Adults,"
American Library Association, 1988

Many people know that Tesla was a scientific genius, instrumental in developing modern electricity and communications. What, perhaps, they don't know is that he was born during a lightning storm; spoke eight languages; and claimed to have invented a death ray that could destroy 10,000 planes from 250 miles away. This book presents an electrifying exploration of his life, work and fame, with 50 irresistible facts converted into infographics to reveal the scientist behind the science.

James Watt (1736-1819) was a pivotal figure of the Industrial Revolution. His career as a scientific instrument maker, inventor and engineer was developed in Scotland, his land of birth. His subsequent national and international significance as a scientist, technologist and businessman was formed in the Birmingham area. There, his partnership with Matthew Boulton and the intellectual and personal support of other members of the Lunar Society network, such as Erasmus Darwin, James Keir, William Small and Josiah Wedgwood, enabled him to translate his improvements in steam technology into efficient machines. His pumping and rotative steam engines represent a summit of technological achievement in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. This is the traditional picture of James Watt. After his death, his surviving son, James Watt junior projected his father's image through commissioning sculptures, medals, paintings and biographies which celebrated his reputation as a 'great man' of the Industrial Revolution. In popular historical understanding Watt has also become a hero of modernity, but the context in which he operated and the roles of others in shaping his ideas have been downplayed. This book explores new aspects of his work and evaluates him in his locational, family, social and intellectual contexts.

'Celebrates human cognitive diversity, and is rich with empathy and psychological insight' Steven Pinker 'Bold, intriguing, profound' Jay Elwes, Spectator Why can humans alone invent? In this book, psychologist and world renowned autism expert Simon Baron-Cohen puts forward a bold new theory: because we can identify patterns, specifically if-and-then patterns. Baron-Cohen argues that the genes for this unique ability overlap with the genes for autism and have driven human progress for 70,000 years. From the first musical instruments to the agricultural, industrial, and digital revolutions, Pattern Seekers links one of our greatest human strengths with a condition that is so often misunderstood and challenges us to think differently about those who think differently.

We think of the Stephensons and Brunel as the fathers of the railways, and their Liverpool and Manchester and Great Western Railways as the prototypes of the modern systems. But who were the railways' grandfathers and great-grandfathers? The rapid evolution of the railways after 1830 depended on the juggernauts of steam locomotion being able to draw upon centuries of experience in using and developing railways, and of harnessing the power of steam. Giants the Stephensons and others may have been, but they stood upon the foundations built by many other considerable - if lesser-known - talents. This is the story of those early pioneers of steam.

Born in Carthage, North Carolina, Lucean Arthur Headen (1879-1957) grew up amid former slave artisans. Inspired by his grandfather, a wheelwright, and great-uncle, a toolmaker, he dreamed as a child of becoming an inventor. His ambitions suffered the menace of Jim Crow and the reality of a new inventive landscape in which investment was shifting from lone inventors to the new "industrial scientists." But determined and ambitious, Headen left the South, and after toiling for a decade as a Pullman porter, risked everything to pursue his dream. He eventually earned eleven patents, most for innovative engine designs and anti-icing methods for aircraft. An equally capable entrepreneur and sportsman, Headen learned to fly in 1911, manufactured his own "Pace Setter" and "Headen Special" cars in the early 1920s, and founded the first national black auto racing association in 1924, all establishing him as an important authority on transportation technologies among African Americans. Emigrating to England in 1931, Headen also proved a successful manufacturer, operating engineering firms in Surrey that distributed his motor and other products worldwide for twenty-five years. Though Headen left few personal records, Jill D. Snider recreates the life of this extraordinary man through historical detective work in newspapers, business and trade publications, genealogical databases, and scholarly works. Mapping the social networks his family built within the Presbyterian church and other organizations (networks on which Headen often relied), she also reveals the legacy of Carthage's, and the South's, black artisans. Their story shows us that, despite our worship of personal triumph, success is often a communal as well as an individual achievement.

The scientific and proto-scientific community of Elizabethan and Jacobean London has lately attracted much scholarly attention. This book advances the subject by means of an investigation of the life and work of Sir Hugh Plat (1552-1611), an author, alchemist, speculator and inventor whose career touched on the fields of alchemy, general scientific curiosity, cookery and sugar work, cosmetics, gardening and agriculture, food manufacture, victualling, supplies and marketing. Unlike many of his colleagues and correspondents, much manuscript material, in the form of notebooks and workings, has survived. Not much, however, is known of his personal life and among his manuscripts there are few letters, diaries or other private materials. What can be learned about him is summarised by Malcolm Thick in the first chapter, before he proceeds to analyse various aspects of his public output. Plat has such a wide range of interests that modern scholars have tended to concentrate on that aspect of his work which most affects their own research. Most recently he has fallen amongst historians of science and while they have carefully examined his written and published works they have, in some cases, interpreted almost all that he wrote as a quest for scientific knowledge, in the same way that the gardening writers thought him primarily a gardener or the cookery writers treated his cookery book as his most important work. By devoting a whole book to his multifarious interests, Thick illustrates Plat as a gentlemen of varied interests, a Londoner trying to make his way in the world, and as a man of his time and place. The chapter on military inventions, for instance, reveals Plat as an inventor who talked to military commanders and bent his mind to their most pressing military needs. His work on famine relief was an immediate response to a run of bad harvests that threatened the food supply of by far the largest city in the country. The medicines he developed aimed to cure the diseases most feared by his friends and neighbours. Even something as frivolous as his work on cosmetics was of great value to those at court, where appearance might dictate fortune. Two important aspects of his research, alchemy and enquiries about the current technology of various trades, were not so immediately dictated by the needs of the time. While his alchemical writings are the most esoteric and complex of his surviving manuscripts, much had a practical end in view - to develop powerful, effective medicines. His work on the technology of trades was by no means disinterested; in more than one instance, he developed better ways of carrying out industrial processes than was then practised and tried, by patents or other means, to make money thereby. The chapters, backed up by a full bibliography, references and documentary appendices, are as follows: Introduction; Biography; Gardening; Agriculture; Military Food & Medicine; The Writing of Delightes for Ladies and Sundrie new and artificiall remedies against famine; Alchemy; Medicine; Scientific Thought and Technique; Inventions; Moneymaking.

The internet was never intended for you, opines Brian McCullough in this lively narrative of an era that utterly transformed everything we thought we knew about technology. In How the Internet Happened, he chronicles the whole fascinating story for the first time, beginning in a dusty Illinois basement in 1993, when a group of college kids set off a once-in-an-epoch revolution with what would become the first "dotcom." Depicting the lives of now-famous innovators like Netscape's Marc Andreessen and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, McCullough also reveals surprising quirks and unknown tales as he tracks both the technology and the culture around the internet's rise. Cinematic in detail and unprecedented in scope, the result both enlightens and informs as it draws back the curtain on the new rhythm of disruption and innovation the internet fostered, and helps to redefine an era that changed every part of our lives.

'Packed end to end with ways to see the world in new ways' Mike Krieger, cofounder, Instagram 'Designed to spark creativity, help solve problems, foster connection and make our lives better' Gretchen Rubin 'Navigate today's world with agility, resilience and imagination' Lorraine Twohill, CMO, Google What do they teach you at the most prestigious design school in the world? For the first time, you can find out. This highly-visual guide brings to life the philosophies of some of the d.school's most inventive and unconventional minds, including founder David Kelley, Choreographer Aleta Hayes and Google Chief Innovation Evangelist Frederik Pferdt and more. Creative Acts for Curious People is packed with ideas about the art of learning, discovery and leading through creative problem solving. With exercises including: - 'Expert Eyes' to test your observation skills - 'How to Talk to Strangers' to foster understanding - 'Designing Tools for Teams' to build creative leadership Revealing the hidden dynamics of design, and delving inside the minds of the profession's most celebrated thought-leaders, this definitive guide will help you live up to your creative potential.

As world demand for electrical energy increases, it will be the ingenuity and skill of brilliant electrochemists that enables us to utilize the planet's mineral reserves responsibly. This biographical dictionary profiles 85 electrochemists from 19 nations who during the past 270 years have researched and developed ever more efficient batteries and energy cells. Each entry traces the subject's origin, education, discoveries and patents, as well as hobbies and family life. The breakthroughs of early innovators are cataloged and the work of living scientists and technicians is brought up to date. An appendix provides a cross-referenced timeline of innovation.

This book contains almost 200 photos taken from the late nineteenth century to the 1960s by the General Electric Company. Over these decades GE scientists continually experimented to invent and modify street lights that could transform urban downtowns, rural roads, and parks into daylight use. The images in this book show more than half of America lighting up for the first time liberating the country from common darkness and allowing entertainment, work, and pleasure to become a 24 hour pursuit.

An unabridged, digitally enlarged printing to include all illustrations.

The aim of this issue of DIID is to describe design as inventor through narrations and illustrations of approaches, experimentation and projects. A useful mapping to re-read the design complexity in order to explore its present boundaries and lay down guidelines for its future developments. Invention pins down a possible solution that the maker uncovers amidst available knowledge. Thinking, inventing and producing: reality - the physical and psychic world - becomes material for continuous investigation and interpretation. Design research 'disrupts to re-arrange', namely, it seeks to achieve original results via re-discussing previously envisaged well-established paradigms and schemes. A penchant for experimentation and contamination allow to define design as inventor: a 'special place' not only for engineering invention, but also for a quest for new forms of behaviour, new material or sensory worlds that can originate radically innovative relationships between men and artefacts.

China has given birth to numerous scientific and technological inventions, and for many centuries led the world in such innovations. Indeed, some of the most important inventions in the history of human civilization originated in China - not least the compass, gunpowder, paper and printing. Ancient Chinese Inventions provides an accessible, illustrated introduction to the many inventions to which China can lay claim, from the aforementioned seminal discoveries to mining technology, the production of silk and ceramics, and brilliant advances in astronomy, mathematics and medicine.

Read all about astonishing airplanes from the history of flight! Jet into the world of flight and discover its history, from the first hot air balloons and gliders to today's supersonic spyplanes, helicopters, and space vehicles. Telling the stories of the pioneers of aviation, such as Charles Lindburgh and Amelia Earhart, the black-and-white chapter book Flight is also packed with fun facts - did you know that early aeroplanes landed on wheels that were borrowed from cars and motorcycles? Flight is part of the Mega Bites series, which uncovers the secrets of history, science, and the natural world. Investigate the most complicated thing in the universe - your Brain; then journey to the most mysterious as we dive into a Black Hole; and closer to home, marvel at the genius of the world's smartest Codebreakers! Whichever title you pick, you'll get the expert knowledge and fun facts you need on each topic, with every book packed with illustrations, fun stories, and anecdotes.

In Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, veteran technology journalist Ashlee Vance provides the first inside look into the extraordinary life and times of Silicon Valley's most audacious entrepreneur.

Written with exclusive access to Musk, his family and friends, the book traces the entrepreneur's journey from a rough upbringing in South Africa to the pinnacle of the global business world. Vance spent over 50 hours in conversation with Musk and interviewed close to 300 people to tell the tumultuous stories of Musk's world-changing companies: PayPal, Tesla Motors, SpaceX and SolarCity, and to characterize a man who has renewed American industry and sparked new levels of innovation while making plenty of enemies along the way.

Vance uses Musk's story to explore one of the pressing questions of our time: can the nation of inventors and creators which led the modern world for a century still compete in an age of fierce global competition? He argues that Musk--one of the most unusual and striking figures in American business history--is a contemporary amalgam of legendary inventors and industrialists like Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Howard Hughes, and Steve Jobs. More than any other entrepreneur today, Musk has dedicated his energies and his own vast fortune to inventing a future that is as rich and far-reaching as the visionaries of the golden age of science-fiction fantasy.

Learn about the role that patent models played in American history--and even learn to build your own replica!Patent models, working models required for US patent filings from 1790 to 1880, offer insight into--and inspiration from--a period of intense technological advancement, the Industrial Revolution. The Rothschild Petersen Patent Model Museum collection consists of thousands of patent models, many from the 19th century. This book features the most outstanding of these patent models, and offers deep insight into the cultural, economic and political history of the United States.This book not only catalogs hundreds of the most compelling models from the collection, but shows you how to build your own replicas of several selected models using Lego, 3d printing, and other materials and techniques.

More than 100 important innovations in ceramics in the last 100 years are individually described. These include such major advances as the float glass process, continuous glass fibers and glass wool, the zirconia oxygen sensor, honeycomb ceramics, tape casting and multilayer ceramics, advances in tunnel kilns, low loss optical fiber, dental ceramics, basic oxygen steelmaking refractories, and uranium dioxide as a nuclear fuel. In addition, a summary of progress in ceramics is given that relates ceramic advances to general trends in the progress of science and industrial development.

In the bestselling tradition of Stuff Matters and The Disappearing Spoon: a clever and engaging look at materials, the innovations they made possible, and how these technologies changed us. 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. She describes, among other things, how our pursuit of precision in timepieces changed how we sleep; how the railroad helped commercialize Christmas; how the necessary brevity of the telegram influenced Hemingway's writing style; and how a young chemist exposed the use of Polaroid's cameras to create passbooks to track black citizens in apartheid South Africa. These fascinating and inspiring stories offer new perspectives on our relationships with technologies. Ramirez shows not only how materials were shaped by inventors but also how those materials shaped culture, chronicling each invention and its consequences-intended and unintended. Filling in the gaps left by other books about technology, Ramirez showcases little-known inventors-particularly people of color and women-who had a significant impact but whose accomplishments have been hidden by mythmaking, bias, and convention. Doing so, she shows us the power of telling inclusive stories about technology. She also shows that innovation is universal-whether it's splicing beats with two turntables and a microphone or splicing genes with two test tubes and CRISPR.

From historical figures such as Marie Curie to contemporaries such as Steve Jobs, a handful of innovators have changed the world. What made them so spectacularly inventive? Melissa A. Schilling, one of the world's leading experts on innovation, looks at the lives of seven creative geniuses--Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Elon Musk, Dean Kamen, Nicola Tesla, Curie, and Jobs--to identify the traits and quirks that led them to become breakthrough innovators. Though all innovators possess incredible intellect, intellect alone does not create a serial innovator. There are other very strong commonalities: for instance, nearly all exhibit very high levels of social detachment. They all have extreme, almost maniacal, faith in their ability to overcome obstacles. And they have a passionate idealism that pushes them to work with intensity even in the face of criticism or failure. These individual traits would be unlikely to work in isolation--being unconventional without having high levels of confidence and direction, for example, might result in rebellious behavior that does not lead to meaningful innovation. Schilling reveals the science behind the convergence of traits that increases the likelihood of success, and shows us how to nurture and facilitate breakthrough innovation in our own lives.

The definitive biography of the century's godfather of invention-from the preeminent Edison scholar

"Israel's meticulous research and refusal to shy away from the dodgier aspects of Edison's personality offers a fresh glimpse into the life of the inventor."-New Scientist

"Remarkable."-Nature

"An authoritative look into Edison's working methods, here leavened by enough personal detail to give the achievements shape."-Publishers Weekly

"Highly recommended."

"Israel's book should go a long way toward taking Edison out of the shadows and placing him in the proper light."-Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Exhaustively researched, with strong emphasis on Edison's methods and achievements."-Kirkus Reviews

The conventional story of Thomas Edison reads more like myth than history: With only three months of formal education, a hardworking young man overcomes the odds and becomes one of the greatest inventors in history. But the portrait that emerges from Edison: A Life of Invention reveals a man of genius and astonishing foresight whose career was actually a product of his fast-changing era. In this peerless biography, Paul Israel exposes for the first time the man behind the inventions, expertly situating his subject within a thoroughly realized portrait of a burgeoning country on the brink of massive change. Informed by Israel's unprecedented access to workshop diaries, notebooks, letters, and more than five million pages of archives, this definitive biography brings fresh insights to a singularly influential and triumphant career in science.