Showing titles in Science & Technology

Against a global backdrop of wartime suffering and postwar hope, Borrowing Life gathers the personal histories of the men and women behind the team that enabled and performed the modern medical miracle of the world's first successful organ transplant.

The late 19th century was a period of explosive technological creativity, but arguably the most important invention of all was Thomas Edison’s incandescent light bulb. Unveiled in his Menlo Park, New Jersey, laboratory in 1879, the light bulb overwhelmed the American public with the sense of the birth of a new age. More than any other invention, the electric light marked the arrival of modernity.

Few recognize how the Great War, the industrialized slaughter that bled Europe from 1914 to 1918, shaped Einstein’s life and work. While Einstein never held a rifle, he formulated general relativity blockaded in Berlin, literally starving. He lost 50 pounds in three months, unable to communicate with his most important colleagues. Some of those colleagues fought against rabid nationalism; others were busy inventing chemical warfare - scientists trapped in the power plays of empire. Meanwhile, Einstein struggled to craft relativity and persuade the world that it was correct.

Frances Glessner Lee, born a socialite to a wealthy and influential Chicago family in the 1870s, was never meant to have a career, let alone one steeped in death and depravity. Yet she developed a fascination with the investigation of violent crimes and made it her life's work. Best known for creating the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, a series of dollhouses that appear charming - until you notice the macabre little details: an overturned chair, or a blood-spattered comforter.

In How the Laser Happened, Nobel laureate Charles Townes provides a highly personal look at some of the leading events in 20th-century physics. This lively memoir, packed with firsthand accounts and historical anecdotes, is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the history of science and an inspiring example for students considering scientific careers.

The compelling, beautiful narrative of Code Name God is one man's rags-to-riches story and, more profoundly, the vision of a world-class physicist seeking to integrate the findings of science, religion, and spiritual quest.

La biografía definitiva de Oppenheimer, el padre de la bomba atómica y una de las figuras más emblemáticas del siglo XX.

In his first memoir, Richard Dawkins shares a rare view into his early life, his intellectual awakening at Oxford, and his path to writing The Selfish Gene. This is an intimate memoir of the childhood and intellectual development of the evolutionary biologist and world-famous atheist and how he came to write what is widely held to be one of the most important books of the 20th century.

Books Do Furnish a Life is divided by theme, including celebrating nature, exploring humanity, and interrogating faith. For the first time, it brings together Richard Dawkins's forewords, afterwords and introductions to the work of some of the leading thinkers of our age - Carl Sagan, Lawrence Krauss, Jacob Bronowski, Lewis Wolpert - with a selection of his reviews to provide an electrifying celebration of science writing, both fiction and non-fiction. It is also a sparkling addition to Dawkins's own remarkable canon of work.

From the acclaimed author of Birdmen comes a revelatory new history of the birth of the automobile - an illuminating and entertaining true tale of invention, competition, and the visionaries, hustlers, and swindlers who came together to transform the world. With a narrative as propulsive as its subject, Drive! plunges us headlong into a time unlike any in history, when manic innovation and consumerist zeal coalesced to forever change the way people got from one place to another.

Reddit hails itself as "the front page of the Internet". It's the third-most visited website in the US—and yet, millions of Americans have no idea what it is. We Are the Nerds is an engrossing look deep inside this captivating, maddening enterprise, whose army of obsessed users have been credited with everything from solving cold-case crimes and spurring tens of millions of dollars in charitable donations to seeding alt-right fury and landing Donald Trump in the White House.

Women are not ancillary to the history of technology; they turn up at the very beginning of every important wave. But they've often been hidden in plain sight, their inventions and contributions touching our lives in ways we don't even realize. Vice reporter and YACHT lead singer Claire L. Evans finally gives these unsung female heroes their due with her insightful social history of the Broad Band, the women who made the Internet what it is today. Evans shows us how these women built and colored the technologies we can't imagine life without.

Strange Frequencies takes listeners on an extraordinary narrative and historical journey to discover how people have used technology in an effort to search for our own immortality. Bebergal builds his own ghostly gadgets to reach the other side and follows the path of famous inventors, engineers, seekers, and seers who attempted to answer life's ultimate mysteries. He finds that not only are technological innovations potent metaphors keeping our spiritual explorations alive, but literal tools through which to experiment the boundaries of the physical world and our own psyches.

Preeminent paleoanthropologist Meave Leakey brings us along on her remarkable journey to reveal the diversity of our early pre-human ancestors and how past climate change drove their evolution. She offers a fresh account of our past, as recent breakthroughs have allowed new analysis of her team’s fossil findings and vastly expanded our understanding of our ancestors. Meave’s own personal story is replete with drama, from thrilling discoveries on the shores of Lake Turkana to run-ins with armed herders and every manner of wildlife, to raising her children....

Salk became a cultural hero and icon for a whole generation. Now, at the fiftieth anniversary of the first national vaccination program, and as humanity is tantalizingly close to eradicating polio worldwide, comes this unforgettable chronicle. Salk's work was an unparalleled achievement, and it makes for a magnificent listen.

Einstein and the Quantum reveals for the first time the full significance of Albert Einstein's contributions to quantum theory. Einstein famously rejected quantum mechanics, observing that God does not play dice. But, in fact, he thought more about the nature of atoms, molecules, and the emission and absorption of light - the core of what we now know as quantum theory - than he did about relativity.

Geometry defines the world around us, helping us make sense of everything from architecture to military science to fashion. And for over 2,000 years, geometry has been equated with Euclid's Elements, arguably the most influential book in the history of mathematics. In The King of Infinite Space, renowned mathematics writer David Berlinski provides a concise homage to this elusive mathematician and his staggering achievements.

The life story of Gary Gygax, godfather of all fantasy adventure games, has been told only in bits and pieces. Michael Witwer has crafted a dynamic, dramatized biography of Gygax from his childhood in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, to his untimely death in 2008. Gygax’s magnum opus, Dungeons & Dragons, would explode in popularity throughout the 1970s and ’80s and irreversibly alter the world of gaming. Gygax’s involvement in the industry lasted long after his dramatic and involuntary departure, and his footprint can be seen in the role-playing genre he is largely responsible for creating.

Escucha ahora la biografía definitiva de Albert Einstein, uno de los iconos del siglo XX y su mayor genio.

The name of Charles Darwin is known to nearly all who have had the benefit of a Western-style education. It is synonymous with the theory of evolution and due to his perspective of man as an animal, his worked ushered in a new paradigm of understanding of the physical and mental behavior of man. However, because of the immense impact of his best known theory, most know only of his work through reviews and historical reports.