Radical Abundance
How a Revolution in Nanotechnology Will Change Civilization
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Radical Abundance
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Narrated by:
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Tim Pabon
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By:
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K. Eric Drexler
About this listen
K. Eric Drexler is the founding father of nanotechnology - the science of engineering on a molecular level. In Radical Abundance, he shows how rapid scientific progress is about to change our world. Thanks to atomically precise manufacturing, we will soon have the power to produce radically more of what people want, and at a lower cost. The result will shake the very foundations of our economy and environment.
Already, scientists have constructed prototypes for circuit boards built of millions of precisely arranged atoms. The advent of this kind of atomic precision promises to change the way we make things - cleanly, inexpensively, and on a global scale. It allows us to imagine a world where solar arrays cost no more than cardboard and aluminum foil, and laptops cost about the same.
A provocative tour of cutting edge science and its implications by the field’s founder and master, Radical Abundance offers a mind-expanding vision of a world hurtling toward an unexpected future.
©2013 K. Eric Drexler (P)2013 Gildan Media LLCListeners also enjoyed...
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 131
Humanity has reached a critical moment. Our world is unsettled and rapidly changing, and we face existential risks over the next century. Various outcomes - good and bad - are possible. Yet our approach to the future is characterized by short-term thinking, polarizing debates, alarmist rhetoric, and pessimism. In this short, exhilarating book, renowned scientist and best-selling author Martin Rees argues that humanity’s prospects depend on our taking a very different approach to planning for tomorrow.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Science, the future, and great wisdom
- By Philomath on 10-29-18
By: Martin Rees
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You Belong to the Universe
- Buckminster Fuller and the Future
- By: Jonathon Keats
- Narrated by: Josh Bloomberg
- Length: 5 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 348
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 292
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Story4 out of 5 stars 289
A self-professed "comprehensive anticipatory design scientist", the inventor Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was undoubtedly a visionary. Fuller's creations often bordered on the realm of science fiction, ranging from the freestanding geodesic dome to the three-wheel Dymaxion car to a bathroom requiring neither plumbing nor sewage. Yet in spite of his brilliant mind and lifelong devotion to serving mankind, Fuller's expansive ideas were often dismissed, and have faded from public memory since his death.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Bucky, Bucky, Bucky
- By Amazon Customer on 08-25-18
By: Jonathon Keats
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What Is Life?
- How Chemistry Becomes Biology
- By: Addy Pross
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 644
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 563
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Story4 out of 5 stars 561
Seventy years ago, Erwin Schrdinger posed a simple, yet profound, question: What is life?. How could the very existence of such extraordinary chemical systems be understood? This problem has puzzled biologists and physical scientists both before, and ever since. Living things are hugely complex and have unique properties, such as self-maintenance and apparently purposeful behaviour which we do not see in inert matter. So how does chemistry give rise to biology?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Profound & Life Changing...
- By Daegan Smith on 04-06-15
By: Addy Pross
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Creation
- How Science Is Reinventing Life Itself
- By: Adam Rutherford
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 44
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 43
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Story4 out of 5 stars 43
What is life? Humans have been asking this question for thousands of years. But as technology has advanced and our understanding of biology has deepened, the answer has evolved. For decades, scientists have been exploring the limits of nature by modifying and manipulating DNA, cells, and whole organisms to create new ones that could never have previously existed on their own.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Goldilocks book on what is life
- By Gary on 07-11-13
By: Adam Rutherford
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Knocking on Heaven's Door
- How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World
- By: Lisa Randall
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 14 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 184
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 152
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Story4 out of 5 stars 156
The latest developments in physics have the potential to radically revise our understanding of the world: its makeup, its evolution, and the fundamental forces that drive its operation. Knocking on Heaven's Door is an exhilarating and accessible overview of these developments and an impassioned argument for the significance of science. There could be no better guide than Lisa Randall.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Too Political
- By Allan on 12-14-11
By: Lisa Randall
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Harmony
- A New Way of Looking at Our World
- By: Charles HRH The Prince of Wales
- Narrated by: Charles HRH The Prince of Wales
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 97
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 76
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 76
For the first time, HRH The Prince of Wales shares his views on how our most pressing modern challenges - from climate change to poverty - are rooted in mankind's disharmony with nature, presenting a compelling case that the solution lies in our ability to regain a balance with the world around us. With its holistic approach, this provocative and well-reasoned book takes the discussion of sustainability and climate change in a new direction.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An Excellent Exploration
- By Sara on 03-31-16
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Conquering the Electron
- The Geniuses, Visionaries, Egomaniacs, and Scoundrels Who Built Our Electronic Age
- By: Derek Cheung, Eric Brach
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 14 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 153
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 126
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Story5 out of 5 stars 125
Want to know how AT&T's Bell Labs developed semiconductor technology - and how its leading scientists almost came to blows in the process? Want to understand how radio and television work - and why RCA drove their inventors to financial ruin and early graves? Conquering the Electron offers these stories and more, presenting each revolutionary technological advance right alongside blow-by-blow personal battles that all too often took place.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Tech, science, engineering & the people behind it.
- By James S. on 05-29-20
By: Derek Cheung, and others
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About Time
- Cosmology, Time and Culture at the Twilight of the Big Bang
- By: Adam Frank
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 82
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 67
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Story4 out of 5 stars 66
The Big Bang is all but dead, and we do not yet know what will replace it. Our universe's "beginning" is at an end. What does this have to do with us here on Earth? Our lives are about to be dramatically shaken again - as altered as they were with the invention of the clock, the steam engine, the railroad, the radio and the Internet.
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1 out of 5 stars
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More fluff than science
- By Ivan the Reviewer on 04-15-13
By: Adam Frank
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Simply Electrifying
- The Technology That Transformed the World, from Benjamin Franklin to Elon Musk
- By: Craig R. Roach
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 67
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 58
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Story4 out of 5 stars 59
Simply Electrifying: The Technology That Transformed the World, from Benjamin Franklin to Elon Musk brings to life the 250-year history of electricity through the stories of the men and women who used it to transform our world: Benjamin Franklin, James Watt, Michael Faraday, Samuel F.B. Morse, Thomas Edison, Samuel Insull, Albert Einstein, Rachel Carson, Elon Musk, and more. In the process, it reveals for the first time the complete, thrilling, and often dangerous story of electricity's historic discovery, development, and worldwide application.
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2 out of 5 stars
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decent, but ended up disappointing.
- By Alexander Douglass on 12-28-18
By: Craig R. Roach
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Life’s Ratchet
- How Molecular Machines Extract Order from Chaos
- By: Peter M. Hoffman
- Narrated by: Paul Hodgson
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 448
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 387
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 382
The cells in our bodies consist of molecules, made up of the same carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen atoms found in air and rocks. But molecules, such as water and sugar, are not alive. So how do our cells - assemblies of otherwise "dead" molecules - come to life, and together constitute a living being? In Life’s Ratchet, physicist Peter M. Hoffmann locates the answer to this age-old question at the nanoscale.
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5 out of 5 stars
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For biologists to learn single molecule biophysics
- By A Synthetic Biologist on 09-04-14
By: Peter M. Hoffman
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Whiplash
- How to Survive Our Faster Future
- By: Joi Ito, Jeff Howe
- Narrated by: James Foster
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 366
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 309
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 309
Today, not only is everything digital getting faster, cheaper, and smaller at an exponential rate, we also have the Internet. When these two revolutions - one in technology and the other in communications - joined, an explosive force was unleashed that changed the very nature of innovation. And with any change, we have seen many strategic blunders and extraordinary learning curves along the way.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Just general advice on how to survive
- By A. Yoshida on 09-01-17
By: Joi Ito, and others
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The Equations of Life
- How Physics Shapes Evolution
- By: Charles S. Cockell
- Narrated by: Ian Porter
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 135
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 113
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 114
In The Equations of Life, biologist Charles S. Cockell makes the forceful argument that the laws of physics narrowly constrain how life can evolve, making evolution's outcomes predictable. If we were to find something very much like a lady bug eating something very much like an aphid on a distant planet, we shouldn't be surprised. The forms of life are guided by a limited set of rules, and, as a result, there is a narrow set of solutions to the challenges of existence.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Too many equations, not enough insights
- By Alec Drumm on 09-24-18
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The Future of the Professions
- How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts
- By: Richard Susskind, Daniel Susskind
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 271
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 224
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Story4 out of 5 stars 223
This book predicts the decline of today's professions and describes the people and systems that will replace them. In an Internet society, according to Richard Susskind and Daniel Susskind, we will neither need nor want doctors, teachers, accountants, architects, the clergy, consultants, lawyers, and many others to work as they did in the 20th century.
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3 out of 5 stars
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I Hope It's Not All True
- By John on 05-01-16
By: Richard Susskind, and others
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The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
- By: Thomas S. Kuhn
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,155
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 833
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Story4 out of 5 stars 815
A good book may have the power to change the way we see the world, but a great book actually becomes part of our daily consciousness, pervading our thinking to the point that we take it for granted, and we forget how provocative and challenging its ideas once were - and still are. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is that kind of book.
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3 out of 5 stars
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The problem is not with the book
- By Marcus on 08-09-09
By: Thomas S. Kuhn
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Jump-Starting America
- How Breakthrough Science Can Revive Economic Growth and the American Dream
- By: Jonathan Gruber, Simon Johnson
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 76
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 59
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 59
The untold story of how America once created the most successful economy the world has ever seen and how we can do it again.
By: Jonathan Gruber, and others
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The Case for Mars
- The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must
- By: Robert Zubrin, Richard Wagner, Arthur C. Clarke - Foreword
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 14 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 356
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 315
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 312
Since the beginning of human history Mars has been an alluring dream - the stuff of legends, gods, and mystery. The planet most like ours, it has still been thought impossible to reach, let alone explore and inhabit. Now with the advent of a revolutionary new plan, all this has changed. Leading space exploration authority Robert Zubrin has crafted a daring new blueprint, Mars Direct, presented here with engaging anecdotes. The Case for Mars is not a vision for the far future or one that will cost us impossible billions.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Compelling
- By Michael D. Busch on 04-16-18
By: Robert Zubrin, and others
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The Singularity Is Near
- When Humans Transcend Biology
- By: Ray Kurzweil
- Narrated by: George Wilson
- Length: 24 hrs and 38 mins
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 447
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For over three decades, Ray Kurzweil has been one of the most respected and provocative advocates of the role of technology in our future. In his classic The Age of Spiritual Machines, he argued that computers would soon rival the full range of human intelligence at its best. Now he examines the next step in this inexorable evolutionary process: The union of human and machine, in which the knowledge and skills embedded in our brains will be combined with the vastly greater capacity, speed, and knowledge-sharing ability of our creations.
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2 out of 5 stars
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RUINED audio.
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By: Ray Kurzweil