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A History Of Invention
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Book Synopsis The Greatest Invention by : Silvia Ferrara
Download or read book The Greatest Invention written by Silvia Ferrara and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2022-03-01 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this exhilarating celebration of human ingenuity and perseverance—published all around the world—a trailblazing Italian scholar sifts through our cultural and social behavior in search of the origins of our greatest invention: writing. The L where a tabletop meets the legs, the T between double doors, the D of an armchair’s oval backrest—all around us is an alphabet in things. But how did these shapes make it onto the page, never mind form complex structures such as this sentence? In The Greatest Invention, Silvia Ferrara takes a profound look at how—and how many times—human beings have managed to produce the miracle of written language, traveling back and forth in time and all across the globe to Mesopotamia, Crete, China, Egypt, Central America, Easter Island, and beyond. With Ferrara as our guide, we examine the enigmas of undeciphered scripts, including famous cases like the Phaistos Disk and the Voynich Manuscript; we touch the knotted, colored strings of the Inca quipu; we study the turtle shells and ox scapulae that bear the earliest Chinese inscriptions; we watch in awe as Sequoyah single-handedly invents a script for the Cherokee language; and we venture to the cutting edge of decipherment, in which high-powered laser scanners bring tears to an engineer’s eye. A code-cracking tour around the globe, The Greatest Invention chronicles a previously uncharted journey, one filled with past flashes of brilliance, present-day scientific research, and a faint, fleeting glimpse of writing’s future.
Book Synopsis The Origins of Invention by : Otis Tufton Mason
Download or read book The Origins of Invention written by Otis Tufton Mason and published by . This book was released on 1896 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis The Invention of Yesterday by : Tamim Ansary
Download or read book The Invention of Yesterday written by Tamim Ansary and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From language to culture to cultural collision: the story of how humans invented history, from the Stone Age to the Virtual Age Traveling across millennia, weaving the experiences and world views of cultures both extinct and extant, The Invention of Yesterday shows that the engine of history is not so much heroic (battles won), geographic (farmers thrive), or anthropogenic (humans change the planet) as it is narrative. Many thousands of years ago, when we existed only as countless small autonomous bands of hunter-gatherers widely distributed through the wilderness, we began inventing stories--to organize for survival, to find purpose and meaning, to explain the unfathomable. Ultimately these became the basis for empires, civilizations, and cultures. And when various narratives began to collide and overlap, the encounters produced everything from confusion, chaos, and war to cultural efflorescence, religious awakenings, and intellectual breakthroughs. Through vivid stories studded with insights, Tamim Ansary illuminates the world-historical consequences of the unique human capacity to invent and communicate abstract ideas. In doing so, he also explains our ever-more-intertwined present: the narratives now shaping us, the reasons we still battle one another, and the future we may yet create.
Book Synopsis Concise History of Science & Invention by : Jolyon Goddard
Download or read book Concise History of Science & Invention written by Jolyon Goddard and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2010 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A global view of science and technology as it developed over the centuries.
Book Synopsis Steven Caney's Invention Book by : Steven Caney
Download or read book Steven Caney's Invention Book written by Steven Caney and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A project book for the would-be inventor with activities, a list of "contraptions" in need of invention, and the stories behind thirty-six existing inventions.
Book Synopsis Mothers and Daughters of Invention by : Autumn Stanley
Download or read book Mothers and Daughters of Invention written by Autumn Stanley and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 792 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stanley traces women's inventions in five vital areas of technology worldwide--agriculture, medicine, reproduction, machines, and computers.
Download or read book Invention written by Norbert Wiener and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An insider's view of the history of discovery and invention.
Book Synopsis Edison's Electric Light by : Robert Friedel
Download or read book Edison's Electric Light written by Robert Friedel and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2010-07-19 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In September 1878, Thomas Alva Edison brashly—and prematurely—proclaimed his breakthrough invention of a workable electric light. That announcement was followed by many months of intense experimentation that led to the successful completion of his Pearl Street station four years later. Edison was not alone—nor was he first—in developing an incandescent light bulb, but his was the most successful of all competing inventions. Drawing from the documents in the Edison archives, Robert Friedel and Paul Israel explain how this came to be. They explore the process of invention through the Menlo Park notes, discussing the full range of experiments, including the testing of a host of materials, the development of such crucial tools as the world's best vacuum pump, and the construction of the first large-scale electrical generators and power distribution systems. The result is a fascinating story of excitement, risk, and competition. Revised and updated from the original 1986 edition, this definitive study of the most famous invention of America's most famous inventor is completely keyed to the printed and electronic versions of the Edison Papers, inviting the reader to explore further the remarkable original sources.
Book Synopsis Scientific American Inventions and Discoveries by : Rodney Carlisle
Download or read book Scientific American Inventions and Discoveries written by Rodney Carlisle and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2008-04-21 with total page 711 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unique A-to-Z reference of brilliance in innovation and invention Combining engagingly written, well-researched history with the respected imprimatur of Scientific American magazine, this authoritative, accessible reference provides a wide-ranging overview of the inventions, technological advances, and discoveries that have transformed human society throughout our history. More than 400 entertaining entries explain the details and significance of such varied breakthroughs as the development of agriculture, the "invention" of algebra, and the birth of the computer. Special chronological sections divide the entries, providing a unique focus on the intersection of science and technology from early human history to the present. In addition, each section is supplemented by primary source sidebars, which feature excerpts from scientists' diaries, contemporary accounts of new inventions, and various "In Their Own Words" sources. Comprehensive and thoroughly readable, Scientific American Inventions and Discoveries is an indispensable resource for anyone fascinated by the history of science and technology. Topics include: aerosol spray * algebra * Archimedes' Principle * barbed wire * canned food * carburetor * circulation of blood * condom * encryption machine * fork * fuel cell * latitude * music synthesizer * positron * radar * steel * television * traffic lights * Heisenberg's uncertainty principle
Book Synopsis The Invention of Humanity by : Siep Stuurman
Download or read book The Invention of Humanity written by Siep Stuurman and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-20 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For much of history, strangers were routinely classified as barbarians and inferiors, seldom as fellow human beings. The notion of a common humanity was counterintuitive and thus had to be invented. Siep Stuurman traces evolving ideas of human equality and difference across continents and civilizations from ancient times to the present. Despite humans’ deeply ingrained bias against strangers, migration and cultural blending have shaped human experience from the earliest times. As travelers crossed frontiers and came into contact with unfamiliar peoples and customs, frontier experiences generated not only hostility but also empathy and understanding. Empires sought to civilize their “barbarians,” but in all historical eras critics of empire were able to imagine how the subjected peoples made short shrift of imperial arrogance. Drawing on the views of a global mix of thinkers—Homer, Confucius, Herodotus, the medieval Muslim scholar Ibn Khaldun, the Haitian writer Antenor Firmin, the Filipino nationalist Jose Rizal, and more—The Invention of Humanity surveys the great civilizational frontiers of history, from the interaction of nomadic and sedentary societies in ancient Eurasia and Africa, to Europeans’ first encounters with the indigenous peoples of the New World, to the Enlightenment invention of universal “modern equality.” Against a backdrop of two millennia of thinking about common humanity and equality, Stuurman concludes with a discussion of present-day debates about human rights and the “clash of civilizations.”
Book Synopsis The First of Everything by : Stewart Ross
Download or read book The First of Everything written by Stewart Ross and published by Michael O'Mara Books. This book was released on 2019-10-03 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lively and highly readable account of human invention, innovation and discovery. The First of Everything recounts the origins, invention and discovery of just about everything on the planet, from the Big Bang to driverless cars.
Book Synopsis Making up Numbers: A History of Invention in Mathematics by : Ekkehard Kopp
Download or read book Making up Numbers: A History of Invention in Mathematics written by Ekkehard Kopp and published by Open Book Publishers. This book was released on 2020-10-23 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Making up Numbers: A History of Invention in Mathematics offers a detailed but accessible account of a wide range of mathematical ideas. Starting with elementary concepts, it leads the reader towards aspects of current mathematical research. The book explains how conceptual hurdles in the development of numbers and number systems were overcome in the course of history, from Babylon to Classical Greece, from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, and so to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The narrative moves from the Pythagorean insistence on positive multiples to the gradual acceptance of negative numbers, irrationals and complex numbers as essential tools in quantitative analysis. Within this chronological framework, chapters are organised thematically, covering a variety of topics and contexts: writing and solving equations, geometric construction, coordinates and complex numbers, perceptions of ‘infinity’ and its permissible uses in mathematics, number systems, and evolving views of the role of axioms. Through this approach, the author demonstrates that changes in our understanding of numbers have often relied on the breaking of long-held conventions to make way for new inventions at once providing greater clarity and widening mathematical horizons. Viewed from this historical perspective, mathematical abstraction emerges as neither mysterious nor immutable, but as a contingent, developing human activity. Making up Numbers will be of great interest to undergraduate and A-level students of mathematics, as well as secondary school teachers of the subject. In virtue of its detailed treatment of mathematical ideas, it will be of value to anyone seeking to learn more about the development of the subject.
Book Synopsis The Modern Invention of Information by : Ronald E Day
Download or read book The Modern Invention of Information written by Ronald E Day and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2008-02-20 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Modern Invention of Information: Discourse, History, and Power, Ronald E. Day provides a historically informed critical analysis of the concept and politics of information. Analyzing texts in Europe and the United States, his critical reading method goes beyond traditional historiographical readings of communication and information by engaging specific historical texts in terms of their attempts to construct and reshape history. After laying the groundwork and justifying his method of close reading for this study, Day examines the texts of two pre–World War II documentalists, Paul Otlet and Suzanne Briet. Through the work of Otlet and Briet, Day shows how documentation and information were associated with concepts of cultural progress. Day also discusses the social expansion of the conduit metaphor in the works of Warren Weaver and Norbert Wiener. He then shows how the work of contemporary French multimedia theorist Pierre Lévy refracts the earlier philosophical writings of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari through the prism of the capitalist understanding of the “virtual society.” Turning back to the pre–World War II period, Day examines two critics of the information society: Martin Heidegger and Walter Benjamin. He explains Heidegger’s philosophical critique of the information culture’s model of language and truth as well as Benjamin’s aesthetic and historical critique of mass information and communication. Day concludes by contemplating the relation of critical theory and information, particularly in regard to the information culture’s transformation of history, historiography, and historicity into positive categories of assumed and represented knowledge.
Book Synopsis How Invention Begins by : John H. Lienhard
Download or read book How Invention Begins written by John H. Lienhard and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In How Invention Begins, Lienhard reconciles the ends of invention with the individual leaps upon which they are built, illuminating the vast web of individual inspirations that lie behind whole technologies. He traces, for instance, the way in which thousands of people applied their combined genius to airplanes, trains, and automobiles, revealing how a collective desire, an upwelling of fascination, a spirit of the times--a Zeitgeist--laid its hold upon inventors. The thing they all sought to create was speed itself. Can we speak of speed as an invention? To do so, he concludes, is certainly no greater a stretch than to call the car an "invention."
Download or read book Metropolis written by Ben Wilson and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2020-11-10 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a captivating tour of cities famous and forgotten, acclaimed historian Ben Wilson tells the glorious, millennia-spanning story how urban living sparked humankind's greatest innovations. “A towering achievement.... Reading this book is like visiting an exhilarating city for the first time—dazzling.” —The Wall Street Journal During the two hundred millennia of humanity’s existence, nothing has shaped us more profoundly than the city. From their very beginnings, cities created such a flourishing of human endeavor—new professions, new forms of art, worship and trade—that they kick-started civilization. Guiding us through the centuries, Wilson reveals the innovations nurtured by the inimitable energy of human beings together: civics in the agora of Athens, global trade in ninth-century Baghdad, finance in the coffeehouses of London, domestic comforts in the heart of Amsterdam, peacocking in Belle Époque Paris. In the modern age, the skyscrapers of New York City inspired utopian visions of community design, while the trees of twenty-first-century Seattle and Shanghai point to a sustainable future in the age of climate change. Page-turning, irresistible, and rich with engrossing detail, Metropolis is a brilliant demonstration that the story of human civilization is the story of cities.
Book Synopsis The Invention of Science by : David Wootton
Download or read book The Invention of Science written by David Wootton and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2015-12-08 with total page 1068 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Captures the excitement of the scientific revolution and makes a point of celebrating the advances it ushered in." —Financial Times A companion to such acclaimed works as The Age of Wonder, A Clockwork Universe, and Darwin’s Ghosts—a groundbreaking examination of the greatest event in history, the Scientific Revolution, and how it came to change the way we understand ourselves and our world. We live in a world transformed by scientific discovery. Yet today, science and its practitioners have come under political attack. In this fascinating history spanning continents and centuries, historian David Wootton offers a lively defense of science, revealing why the Scientific Revolution was truly the greatest event in our history. The Invention of Science goes back five hundred years in time to chronicle this crucial transformation, exploring the factors that led to its birth and the people who made it happen. Wootton argues that the Scientific Revolution was actually five separate yet concurrent events that developed independently, but came to intersect and create a new worldview. Here are the brilliant iconoclasts—Galileo, Copernicus, Brahe, Newton, and many more curious minds from across Europe—whose studies of the natural world challenged centuries of religious orthodoxy and ingrained superstition. From gunpowder technology, the discovery of the new world, movable type printing, perspective painting, and the telescope to the practice of conducting experiments, the laws of nature, and the concept of the fact, Wotton shows how these discoveries codified into a social construct and a system of knowledge. Ultimately, he makes clear the link between scientific discovery and the rise of industrialization—and the birth of the modern world we know.
Book Synopsis The Invention of Scotland by : Hugh Trevor-Roper
Download or read book The Invention of Scotland written by Hugh Trevor-Roper and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-07-16 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that while Anglo-Saxon culture has given rise to virtually no myths at all, myth has played a central role in the historical development of Scottish identity. Hugh Trevor-Roper explores three myths across 400 years of Scottish history: the political myth of the "ancient constitution" of Scotland; the literary myth, including Walter Scott as well as Ossian and ancient poetry; and the sartorial myth of tartan and the kilt, invented--ironically, by Englishmen--in quite modern times. Trevor-Roper reveals myth as an often deliberate cultural construction used to enshrine a people's identity. While his treatment of Scottish myth is highly critical, indeed debunking, he shows how the ritualization and domestication of Scotland's myths as local color diverted the Scottish intelligentsia from the path that led German intellectuals to a dangerous myth of racial supremacy. This compelling manuscript was left unpublished on Trevor-Roper's death in 2003 and is now made available for the first time. Written with characteristic elegance, lucidity, and wit, and containing defiant and challenging opinions, it will absorb and provoke Scottish readers while intriguing many others. "I believe that the whole history of Scotland has been coloured by myth; and that myth, in Scotland, is never driven out by reality, or by reason, but lingers on until another myth has been discovered, or elaborated, to replace it."-Hugh Trevor-Roper
