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Books > Biography > Science, technology & engineering
MOSHOOD ADEMOLA FAYEMIWO was a newspaper publisher/editor in
Nigeria where he grew up but now lives in Chicago. An alumnus of
University of Lagos, Nigeria, University of South Florida, and
State University of New York, he is author of Who's Who of Africans
in America and four published books.. His next book is; Jonathan;
The Squandering of Good Luck. MARGIE MARIE NEAL is former
university professor, education consultant, and reading coach in
Chicago. An alumna of State University of New York, Chicago State
University, American College of Education, and University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is co-author, People Power in
Africa: A Week That Changed Nigeria Forever," and author of; "The
Roles of Professional Organizations in the Effective Teaching of
Reading in Chicago Public School-CPS: The IRA and IRC as Case
Studies," (forthcoming). Praise For ALIKO MOHAMMAD ADNGOTE THE
BIOGRAPHY OF THE RICHEST BLACK PERSON IN THE WORLD "A highly
recommended book to anyone who enjoys learning about how different
people of all walks of life become rich and successful, and what it
takes to get to the top"---Readers Favorite Book (Starred Review),
USA. "A compelling book about a unique personality in
Africa"---Goodreads, USA. "Flawlessly written, Dangote stands out
as a hallmark of excellent artisanship and knowledgeable
chronicling"--- Bookplex Review of Books, Mumbai, India. "Nigerian
Aliko Dangote, the richest black person in the world, is a witness
to the fact that success as a passionate entrepreneur is not
limited by race, ethnicity or national origin"---Congressman Jesse
L. Jackson, Jr.-(D - IL), 2nd Congressional District, U.S. House of
Representatives, Washington, DC, USA. In a land lacking a culture
of independent biography, this is a starting point, and Dangote is
a promising introduction to the fascinating and still largely
unmapped universe of one of the world's richest men."---The
Huffington Post, USA. "Dangote has trumped long held assumptions,
cultural archetypes and stereotypes, to become known as a respected
business man, power broker and philanthropist"---Hon Gloria Hyatt,
Member of the British Empire (MBE), motivational speaker,
education, coach and managing director, Teach Consultancy Limited,
UK. "This is a timely book on Aliko Dangote and the positive
changes that are taking place in Africa,"---Prof. Vijay Mahajan,
The John Harbin Centennial Chair of Business, McCombs School of
Business, University of Texas, Austin USA. Publisher's website:
http: //sbpra.com/MoshoodAdemolaFayemiwoandMargieMarieNeal
Audubon Park's journey from farmland to cityscape The study of
Audubon Park's origins, maturation, and disappearance is at root
the study of a rural society evolving into an urban community, an
examination of the relationship between people and the land they
inhabit. When John James Audubon bought fourteen acres of northern
Manhattan farmland in 1841, he set in motion a chain of events that
moved forward inexorably to the streetscape that emerged seven
decades later. The story of how that happened makes up the pages of
The Neighborhood Manhattan Forgot: Audubon Park and the Families
Who Shaped It. This fully illustrated history peels back the many
layers of a rural society evolving into an urban community,
enlivened by the people who propelled it forward: property owners,
tenants, laborers, and servants. The Neighborhood Manhattan Forgot
tells the intricate tale of how individual choices in the face of
family dysfunction, economic crises, technological developments,
and the myriad daily occurrences that elicit personal reflection
and change of course pushed Audubon Park forward to the cityscape
that distinguishes the neighborhood today. A longtime evangelist
for Manhattan's Audubon Park neighborhood, author Matthew Spady
delves deep into the lives of the two families most responsible
over time for the anomalous arrangement of today's streetscape: the
Audubons and the Grinnells. Buoyed by his extensive research, Spady
reveals the darker truth behind John James Audubon (1785-1851), a
towering patriarch who consumed the lives of his family members in
pursuit of his own goals. He then narrates how fifty years after
Audubon's death, George Bird Grinnell (1849-1938) and his siblings
found themselves the owners of extensive property that was not
yielding sufficient income to pay taxes, insurance, and
maintenance. Like the Audubons, they planned an exit strategy for
controlled change that would have an unexpected ending. Beginning
with the Audubons' return to America in 1839, The Neighborhood
Manhattan Forgot follows the many twists and turns of the area's
path from forest to city, ending in the twenty-first century with
the Audubon name re-purposed in today's historic district, a
multiethnic, multi-racial urban neighborhood far removed from the
homogeneous, Eurocentric Audubon Park suburb.
This book is for anyone, young or old, who has ever had a desire or
ambition to achieve the American Dream. It is a story of a man
chasing the American Dream told from an African perspective. It is
a story which illustrates the power of setting goals and working
hard to achieve them. The key is to stay focused. Life is a journey
sometimes fraught with many obstacles, highs and lows. In this book
the reader will find reason to stay focused on their goal,
inspiration to take them over the lows and around the obstacles.
Come with me to the Top of The Mountain. Our journey will take us
from the sun -drenched, arid African reservations(rural areas to
which Africans were relegated) of Southern Rhodesia ( present day
Zimbabwe ) to the academic halls of Albert Einstein College of
medicine in the Bronx, New York. Enjoy the ride.
Charles Babbage was thirty years old in 1821, as was his close
friend, John Herschel, and in English intellectual circles they
were both regarded as brilliant mathematicians. One day as Babbage
worked in preparing logarithmic tables, a tedious and boring task,
he commented to Herschel that he thought he could invent a machine
to do these calculations with far more speed and accuracy than a
human calculator could. And so was born an idea that would
fascinate, tantalize, and absorb him for the remainder of his life.
Over the years he drew plans, expanded them, modified them, and
finally invented two machines, the Difference Engine and the
Analytical Engine. The first was capable only of generating tables,
but the Analytical Engine could do much more. It could convert into
numbers and print the results of any formula that might be
required. It could also develop any analytical formula the laws of
whose formation were given. Using punched cards it could store
early results in a calculation and then use them to make further
calculations when they were required. He had invented the first
mechanical computer.
This book provides a rounded biography of Franz (later Sir Francis)
Simon, his early life in Germany, his move to Oxford in 1933, and
his experimental contributions to low temperature physics
approximating absolute zero. After 1939 he switched his research to
nuclear physics, and is credited with solving the problem of
uranium isotope separation by gaseous diffusion for the British
nuclear programme Tube Alloys. The volume is distinctive for its
inclusion of source materials not available to previous
researchers, such as Simon's diary and his correspondence with his
wife, and for a fresh, well-informed insider voice on the
five-power nuclear rivalry of the war years. The work also draws on
a relatively mature nuclear literature to attempt a comparison and
evaluation of the five nuclear rivals in wider political and
military context, and to identify the factors, or groups of
factors, that can explain the results.
Ships of Mercy tells the riveting true story of Mercy Ships, the
astonishing fleet of hospital ships that sail the globe, bringing
dramatic change to the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in
the most impoverished and disease-stricken corners of the world.
Ships of Mercy is a page-turner of the highest quality, an
inspiring testimony both to the essence of the human spirit and
God's amazing providence. It tells the story of a teenager's
extraordinary vision brought to reality in the form of a
multi-million dollar life-saving mission. It also tells the story
of a family of people from diverse backgrounds who have sacrificed
their comfort and security in order to perform remarkable acts of
grace and kindness.
Here is a multidimensional playland of ideas from the world's most eccentric Nobel-Prize winning scientist. Kary Mullis is legendary for his invention of PCR, which redefined the world of DNA, genetics, and forensic science. He is also a surfer, a veteran of Berkeley in the sixties, and perhaps the only Nobel laureate to describe a possible encounter with aliens. A scientist of boundless curiosity, he refuses to accept any proposition based on secondhand or hearsay evidence, and always looks for the "money trail" when scientists make announcements.
Mullis writes with passion and humor about a wide range of topics: from global warming to the O. J. Simpson trial, from poisonous spiders to HIV, from scientific method to astrology. Dancing Naked in the Mind Field challenges us to question the authority of scientific dogma even as it reveals the workings of an uncannily original scientific mind.
Discovering the passions of Chris Woodhead Collected writings from
a man who stimulated controversy and roused passions Best known as
the Chief Inspector of Schools who demanded higher standards across
the board, Woodhead was admired and condemned in equal measure for
his determination to confront taboos and bring them into the
national education debate. His final and greatest challenge was
with Motor Neurone Disease, a condition he faced with strength and
empathy until his death in 2015. While his education journalism
stands at the core of this book, What Matters Most explores
Woodhead's lesser known passions, literature and climbing, which he
writes about with the precision and clarity that became his
journalistic hallmark. In the final pages of the book Woodhead
shares his personal views on assisted dying, advocating for
individuals to be permitted to die with dignity at a time of their
choosing. What Matters Most: A Collection of Pieces is a
fascinating and poignant book which tracks the life and beliefs of
a truly inspirational contemporary thinker.
This biography of the famous Soviet physicist Leonid Isaakovich
Mandelstam (1889-1944), who became a Professor at Moscow State
University in 1925 and an Academician (the highest scientific title
in the USSR) in 1929, describes his contributions to both physics
and technology. It also discusses the scientific community that
formed around him, commonly known as the Mandelstam School. By
doing so, it places Mandelstam's life story in its cultural
context: the context of German University (until 1914), the First
World War, the Civil War, and the development of the Socialist
Revolution (until 1925) and the young socialist country. The book
considers various general issues, such as the impact of German
scientific culture on Russian science; the problems and fates of
Russian intellectuals during the revolutionary and
post-revolutionary years; the formation of the Soviet Academy of
Science, the State Academy; and the transformation of the system of
higher education in the USSR during the 1920s and 1930s. Further,
it reconstructs Mandelstam's philosophy of science and his approach
to the social and ethical function of science and science education
based on his fundamental writings and lecture notes. This
reconstruction is enhanced by extensive use of previously
unpublished archive material as well as the transcripts of personal
interviews conducted by the author. The book also discusses the
biographies of Mandelstam's friends and collaborators: German
mathematician and philosopher Richard von Mises, Soviet Communist
Party official and philosopher B.M.Hessen, Russian specialist in
radio engineering N.D.Papalexy, the specialists in non-linear
dynamics A.A.Andronov, S.E. Chaikin, A.A.Vitt and the plasma
physicist M.A.Leontovich. This second, extended edition
reconstructs the social and economic backgrounds of Mandelstam and
his colleagues, describing their positions at the universities and
the institutes belonging to the Academy of Science. Additionally,
Mandelstam's philosophy of science is investigated in connection
with the ideological attacks that occurred after Mandelstam's
death, particularly the great mathematician A.D.Alexandrov's
criticism of Mandelstam's operationalism.
Brown-Sequard: An Improbable Genius Who Transformed Medicine traces
the strange career of an eccentric, restless, widely admired,
nineteenth-century physician-scientist who eventually came to be
scorned by antivivisectionists for his work on animals, by
churchgoers who believed that he encouraged licentious behavior,
and by other scientists for his unorthodox views and for claims
that, in fact, he never made. An improbable genius whose colorful
life was characterized by dramatic reversals of fortune, he was a
founder-physician of England's premier neurological hospital and
held important professorships in America and France.
Brown-Sequard identified the sensory pathways in the spinal cord
and emphasized functional processes in the integrative actions of
the nervous system, thereby anticipating modern concepts of how the
brain operates. He also discovered the function of the nerves that
supply the blood vessels and thereby control their caliber, and the
associated reflexes that adjust the circulation to bodily needs. He
was the first to show that the adrenal glands are essential to life
and suggested that other organs have internal secretions. He
injected himself with ground-up animal testicles, claiming an
invigorating effect, and this approach led to the development of
modern hormone replacement therapy.
Charles-Edouard Brown-Sequard was reportedly "one of the greatest
discover of facts that the world has ever seen." It has also been
suggested that "if his reasoning power had equaled his power of
observation he might have done for physiology what Newton did for
physics." In fact, scientific advances in the years since his death
have provided increasing support for many of his once-ridiculed
beliefs."
Combining memoir and studies in the Environmental Humanities, Black
Swan Song weaves together an autobiographically-based account of
the unique life and work of Rod Giblett. For over 25 years he was a
leading local wetland conservationist, environmental activist, and
pioneer transdisciplinary researcher and writer of fiction and
non-fiction. He has researched, written, and published more than 25
books in the environmental humanities, especially wetland cultural
studies, and psychoanalytic ecology. Black Swan Song traces Rod's
early and later life and work from being born in Borneo as the
child of Christian missionaries, through his childhood in Bible
College, being a High School dropout and studying at three
universities to becoming an academic, activist and author, and now
a writer. Following in the footsteps of New Lives of the Saints:
Twelve Environmental Apostles, Black Swan Song also comprises
conversations in conservation counter-theology between the twelve
minor biblical prophets and twelve environmental apostles, such as
Henry David Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, John Muir, and Rachel Carson. It
also introduces the lives and works of twelve more environmental
apostles, such as John Clare, Rebecca Solnit, John Charles Ryan,
and others who have made a valuable contribution to green thinking
and living. Black Swan Song mixes modes and genres, such as memoir,
essay, story, criticism, etc., making up the writer's black swan
song. It provides ways of living and being with the earth in dark
and troubled times by providing resources of a journey of hope for
learning to live bio- and psycho-symbiotic livelihoods in
bioregional home habitats of the living earth and in the
Symbiocene, the hoped-for age superseding the Anthropocene.
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