|
Books > Biography > Science, technology & engineering
'His clarity, wit and determination are evident, his understand and
good humour moving' New Scientist My Brief History recounts Stephen
Hawking's improbable journey, from his post-war London boyhood to
his years of international acclaim and celebrity. Lavishly
illustrated with rarely seen photographs, this concise, witty and
candid account introduces readers to a Hawking rarely glimpsed in
previous books: the inquisitive schoolboy whose classmates
nicknamed him 'Einstein'; the jokester who once placed a bet with a
colleague over the existence of a black hole; and the young husband
and father struggling to gain a foothold in the world of academia.
Writing with characteristic humility and humour, Hawking opens up
about the challenges that confronted him following his diagnosis of
motor neurone disease aged twenty-one. Tracing his development as a
thinker, he explains how the prospect of an early death urged him
onwards through numerous intellectual breakthroughs, and talks
about the genesis of his masterpiece A Brief History of Time - one
of the iconic books of the twentieth century. Clear-eyed, intimate
and wise, My Brief History opens a window for the rest of us into
Hawking's personal cosmos. 'Read it for the personal nuggets . . .
but above all, it's worth reading for its message of hope' Mail on
Sunday
In this very special story of transcendent revelations and global
repercussions, track the full course of L. Ron Hubbard's scientific
horticultural discoveries. Explore his research, articles and
personal notes-never before published, and yet which had everything
to do with his greater breakthroughs and insights into life itself.
The Uncrowned King of Mont Blanc by Peter Foster is the biography
of scientist and mountaineer Thomas Graham Brown, whose
encyclopaedic knowledge of the mountain earned him the soubriquet,
and whose achievements in the Alps and Greater Ranges place him at
the forefront of British mountaineering between the two world wars.
Born in Edinburgh in 1882, Graham Brown first pursued a career in
the sciences as a physiologist - his exacting father demanding the
highest standards - and the results of his research, largely
unrecognised at the time, now underpin current understanding of the
nervous control of movement in animals and man. His mountaineering
career began in earnest after the First World War. From rock
climbing in the Lake District he progressed to guided climbs in the
Alps, where in 1927 he was fatefully introduced to Frank Smythe
with whom he made the groundbreaking first ascents of the
Sentinelle Rouge and the Route Major on the Brenva Face of Mont
Blanc. This resulted in an obsession with the mountain and a feud
between the pair that smouldered and flared for twenty years.
Ambitious, determined and uncompromising in his views, he never
left others feeling neutral: Geoffrey Winthrop Young thought him `a
vicious lunatic', yet Charles Houston felt closer to Graham Brown
`than almost anyone else I know'. Graham Brown's life was one of
turbulence in his career, relationships and in the mountains,
whether on expeditions to Mount Foraker, Nanda Devi and Masherbrum,
or most frequently, the Alps. Peter Foster has drawn upon diaries,
letters and extensive archival research that illuminate the highs
and lows of Graham Brown's scientific and climbing careers, and
explores the imbalance between the significance of his achievements
and the lack of recognition he received. But, above all, The
Uncrowned King of Mont Blanc allows one to hear Graham Brown's
voice: querulous, opinionated and, to the discomfort of his many
adversaries, almost always right.
A celebration of the life and engineering achievements of Isambard
Kingdom Brunel by two of the world's foremost authorities. In his
lifetime, Isambard Kingdom Brunel towered over his profession.
Today, he remains the most famous engineer in history, the epitome
of the volcanic creative forces which brought about the Industrial
Revolution - and brought modern society into being. Brunel's
extraordinary talents were drawn out by some remarkable
opportunities - above all his appointment as engineer to the new
Great Western Railway at the age of 26 - but it was his nature to
take nothing for granted, and to look at every project, whether it
was the longest railway yet planned, or the largest ship ever
imagined, from first principles. A hard taskmaster to those who
served him, he ultimately sacrificed his own life to his work in
his tragically early death at the age of 53. His legacy, though, is
all around us, in the railways and bridges that he personally
designed, and in his wider influence. This fascinating new book
draws on Brunel's own diaries, letters and sketchbooks to
understand his life, times, and work.
This monograph presents a groundbreaking scholarly treatment of the
German mathematician Jost Burgi's original work on logarithms,
Arithmetische und Geometrische Progress Tabulen. It provides the
first-ever English translation of Burgi's text and illuminates his
role in the development of the conception of logarithms, for which
John Napier is traditionally given priority. High-resolution scans
of each page of the his handwritten text are reproduced for the
reader and as a means of preserving an important work for which
there are very few surviving copies. The book begins with a brief
biography of Burgi to familiarize readers with his life and work,
as well as to offer an historical context in which to explore his
contributions. The second chapter then describes the extant copies
of the Arithmetische und Geometrische Progress Tabulen, with a
detailed description of the copy that is the focus of this book,
the 1620 "Graz manuscript". A complete facsimile of the text is
included in the next chapter, along with a corresponding
transcription and an English translation; a transcription of a
second version of the manuscript (the "Gdansk manuscript") is
included alongside that of the Graz edition so that readers can
easily and closely examine the differences between the two. The
final chapter considers two important questions about Burgi's work,
such as who was the copyist of the Graz manuscript and what the
relationship is between the Graz and Gdansk versions. Appendices
are also included that contain a timeline of Burgi's life, the
underlying concept of Napier's construction of logarithms, and
scans of all 58 sheets of the tables from Burgi's text. Anyone with
an appreciation for the history of mathematics will find this book
to be an insightful and interesting look at an important and often
overlooked work. It will also be a valuable resource for
undergraduates taking courses in the history of mathematics,
researchers of the history of mathematics, and professors of
mathematics education who wish to incorporate historical context
into their teaching.
|
You may like...
Elon Musk
Walter Isaacson
Hardcover
R590
R472
Discovery Miles 4 720
|