Inventions and inventors Books
Penguin Putnam Inc Soonish Ten Emerging Technologies Thatll Improve
Book SynopsisThe instant New York Times bestseller!A Wall Street Journal Best Science Book of the Year!A Popular Science Best Science Book of the Year! From a top scientist and the creator of the hugely popular web comic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, a hilariously illustrated investigation into future technologies -- from how to fling a ship into deep space on the cheap to 3D organ printing What will the world of tomorrow be like? How does progress happen? And why do we not have a lunar colony already? What is the hold-up? In this smart and funny book, celebrated cartoonist Zach Weinersmith and noted researcher Dr. Kelly Weinersmith give us a snapshot of what's coming next -- from robot swarms to nuclear fusion powered-toasters. By weaving their own research, interviews with the scientists who are making these advances happen, and Zach's trademark comi
£22.10
Johns Hopkins University Press Inventing the Cotton Gin
Book SynopsisFar from being a record of southern failure, Lakwete concludes, the cotton gin-correctly understood-supplies evidence that the slave labor-based antebellum South innovated, industrialized, and modernized.Trade ReviewWith careful use of vivid illustrations and keen analytic skills, Lakwete captures the relationship between technology and human initiative. -- Lester P. Lee, Jr. Times Literary Supplement 2004 Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, which created the Old South and then destroyed it... Lakwete targets this myth in Inventing the Cotton Gin and largely demolishes it. -- John Bezis-Selfa Alabama Review 2005 This study provides students a clear example of how technological choices are not the storybook cases of perfected innovations replacing hopelessly outclassed traditional methods. -- William H. Phillips EH.Net 2004 For those seeking to understand how the interplay of market factors, cultural norms, and personal choices shape-and are shaped by-technology, Inventing the Cotton Gin is an excellent read. -- Don Butts History: Reviews of New Books 2004 Lakwete has written the first scholarly study of the cotton gin in antebellum America... Instead of viewing Eli Whitney's work as a historical watershed, she finds continuity. Choice 2004 Lakwete joins the pantheon of technological historians by demolishing a standard, widely accepted myth with the careful and persuasive analysis of a vast array of evidence... The book is a triumph. -- Barbara Hahn H-South, H-Net Reviews 2004 Few will dispute that this book will change how historians think about the rise of King Cotton and the nature of technological change. -- John Majewski Business History Review 2004 [Lakwete] captures the nuances that distinguish technological success from failure. -- John S. Nader Enterprise and Society 2004 Another myth relating to the South is relegated, shall we say-with apologies to Marx-to the (cotton) dustbin of history... A major work of scholarship. -- Peter A. Coclanis Technology and Culture 2004 Inventing the Cotton Gin is an education in economic and business history as much as a needed revisionist version of the cotton gin myth. -- Kim Long Bloomsbury Review 2004 Bold and path-breaking... Most forcefully, Lakwete impugns the notion that a machine bears the responsibility for the Civil War and its aftermath. -- Mark Finlay South Carolina Historical Magazine 2004 The best and most sophisticated treatment of the gin in the larger context of the antebellum cotton South we are likely to see... The dramatic, great-white man narrative of Eli Whitney yields to a richer, more complex story. -- David L. Carlton Georgia Historical Quarterly 2004 She has done an excellent job of weaving together an amazingly complex series of events in a straightforward and interesting manner. -- Twyla Dell Material Culture 2006 An important addition to the growing list of works on southern industrialization... As with other good history books, it challenges what we think we knew, and sends us searching for more clues. -- Shepherd W. McKinley H-Net Reviews 2007Table of ContentsPrefaceAcknowledgments1. Cotton and the Gin to 16002. The Roller Gin in the America, 1607-17903. The Invention of the Saw Gin, 1790-18104. The Transition from the Roller to the Saw Gin, 1796-18305. The Saw Gin Industry, 1830-18656. Saw Gin Innovation, 1820-18607. Old and New Roller Gins, 1820-18708. Machine and MythNotesEssay on SourcesIndex
£48.00
Adventures Unlimited Press The Tesla Papers
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£19.80
Flatiron Books A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence
Book SynopsisFrom Oxford''s leading AI researcher comes a fun and accessible tour through the history and future of one of the most cutting edge and misunderstood field in science: Artificial IntelligenceThe somewhat ill-defined long-term aim of AI is to build machines that are conscious, self-aware, and sentient; machines capable of the kind of intelligent autonomous action that currently only people are capable of. As an AI researcher with 25 years of experience, professor Mike Wooldridge has learned to be obsessively cautious about such claims, while still promoting an intense optimism about the future of the field. There have been genuine scientific breakthroughs that have made AI systems possible in the past decade that the founders of the field would have hailed as miraculous. Driverless cars and automated translation tools are just two examples of AI technologies that have become a practical, everyday reality in the past few years, and which will have a huge impact on our w
£23.19
Johns Hopkins University Press The Aha Moment
Book SynopsisAs Jones shows, it can often pay to take an absurd idea seriously.Trade ReviewThe Aha! Moment is not bogged down with scientific detail and tech talk; in fact, it asks a multitude of absurd questions meant to promote innovative and logical brainstorming. Jones gives dozens of examples from his own body of work... While his examples dominate more than half of the book, they are intriguing and stimulating, acting as a means to promote creativity in fellow scientists and artists. -- Aimee Jodoin Foreword Reviews A top pick not to be limited to science holdings, this will reach many a general-interest reader with its fascinating, readable and lively insights. Midwest Book Review David Jones sees himself as the court jester of science and, as with jesters of old, he is allowed to say things that other mortals might think but dare not speak... Most of the book is an eclectic blend of Jones the chemist and Daedalus the mad scientist and together they make entertaining reading. You'd be mad not to buy it -- John Emsley Chemistry World A practical blueprint to bolster one's own creative process, a treasure map to innovative insights. -- Bob Grant The Scientist A fascinating insight into one man's never-ending search for ideas. -- Jessica Griggs New ScientistTable of ContentsPreface: Creativity in My Career1. A Theory of Creativity2. The Creative Environment3. Thoughts on the Random Ideas Generator4. Intuition and Odd Notions5. Creativity in Scientific Papers6. Heat and Gravity7. Astronomical Musings8. Rotating Things9. Explosions and Fuses10. Tricks with Optics11. Properties of Materials12. Physical Phenomena I Have Noticed13. Odd Notions I Have Played With14. Literary Information15. Inventions We Need but Don't Have16. A List of Silly Questions17. A Short Guide to Being CreativeNotesIndex
£29.68
National Geographic Society An Uncommon History of Common Things
Book SynopsisPop culture fans and trivia lovers will delight in National Geographic’s highly browsable, freewheeling compendium of customs, notions and inventions that reflect human ingenuity throughout history. Dip into any page and discover extraordinary hidden details in the everyday that will inform, amuse, astonish, and surprise. From hand tools to holidays to weapons to washing machines, this book features hundreds of colorful illustrations, timelines, sidebars, and more as it explores just about every subject under the sun. Who knew that indoor plumbing has been around for 4,600 years, but punctuation, capital letters, and the handy spaces between written words only date back to the Dark Ages? Or that ancient soldiers baked a kind of pizza on their shields— when they weren’t busy flying kites to frighten their foes?
£32.00
HarperCollins What Could Possibly Go Wrong
£18.99
Chronicle Books LEGO Heroes
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£13.99
History Press Connecticut Inventors and Innovators
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£20.39
History Press Made in Ohio
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£20.39
Chicago Review Press You Call This the Future?: The Greatest
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£13.46
Publications International, Ltd. The Book of 10,000 Incredible Facts
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£16.13
ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons Inc World Industrialization: Shared Inventions,
Book SynopsisBased on the paradigms of economics and management, inspired by the history of technology and the sociology of technological change, the concepts of shared inventions and competitive innovations make it possible to analyze the industrialization of the world in a fresh and efficient way. As a new approach, shared inventions are classified in this book as a set of existing knowledge that�s often associated with the rediscovery of old techniques. Determining capitalized and collective intelligence, this knowledge and reinvention allows us to create inventions which will be shared, first in their construction, then in their use. Another new approach is that these competitive innovations are defined in World Industrialization by associations of experiences of competitively-motivated actors actors seeking to complement existing techniques by increasing their competitive power. These shared inventions and competitive innovations will also be defined by trajectories identifying their modes of creation, enabling us to overcome the peculiarities of these actions and competitions. This book also highlights four key areas in global industrialization: the emergence of machinism with the defense of Arts and Crafts from 16981760; the changes the Industrial Revolution wrought in developed nations from 17601850; the link between technology and social relations within modern companies from 18501914; and, from 1914 onwards, the birth of extended machinism, its world wars and its global crises.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments xi Introduction xiii Part 1 Industrialization and its Conceptualizations 1 Introduction to Part 1 3 Chapter 1 The Notion of Industrialization and Other Related Notions 5 1.1 The notion of industrialization 5 1.1.1 The birth of the notion of industrialization 5 1.1.2 Industrialization according to economists 8 1.1.3 Industrialization according to management sciences 18 1.1.4 Sociologies of technology and knowledge 20 1.1.5 Industrialization according to technological historians 21 1.1.6 The objectives of histories of technology 23 1.1.7 The different histories of technology 28 1.1.8 The synthesis of these contributions: continuity or discontinuity? 35 1.2 The links between industrialization, technological revolutions and machinism 37 1.2.1 Industrialization and industrial revolutions 37 1.2.2 Industrialization and the various revolutions 38 1.2.3 Industrialization and machinism 38 Chapter 2 Social Dynamics, Shared Inventions and Competitive Innovations 41 2.1 Social dynamics 42 2.1.1 The glorification of arts and crafts: from guilds to arts and crafts communities 43 2.1.2 The defense and glory of nations 47 2.1.3 The links between technology, social relations and people at work 48 2.2 Evolution of the notions of technological change, invention and innovation 50 2.2.1 Technological changes and the temptation of symbols and representations 50 2.2.2 The ambiguities of the notion of invention 51 2.2.3 The enigmas of innovation 52 2.2.4 The end of the technological change/invention/innovation triangle? 53 2.3 Shared inventions 55 2.3.1 From the sharing of inventions to shared inventions 55 2.3.2 The first definitions of shared inventions 56 2.3.3 A definition of shared inventions 57 2.3.4 The trajectories of shared inventions 59 2.4 Competitive innovations 60 2.4.1 The first definitions of competitive innovations 60 2.4.2 The competition principles adopted 61 2.4.3 The trajectories of competitive innovations 62 Part 2 Historical Periods, Social Dynamics, Shared Inventions and Competitive Innovations 65 Introduction to Part 2 67 Chapter 3 1698–1760 or the Emergence of Machinism 69 3.1 The situation in 1698 69 3.1.1 Major changes in social relations, religions and manufactories 69 3.1.2 Manufactories and the organization of work in France and England 71 3.1.3 New models of manufactory organization 72 3.1.4 Performance of manufactories versus development of nations 73 3.1.5 Statement of account 74 3.2 1698–1760: industrialization and major changes 75 3.2.1 Conflicts between religions and the economy 75 3.2.2 Conflicts between nations 76 3.2.3 The willingness of governments to enact change in public affairs 76 3.3 The precursors and inventions of steam engines 77 3.3.1 The era of the Enlightenment and other imaginative inventors 77 3.3.2 The appearance of the true inventors 78 3.4 Steam engines and shared inventions 79 3.4.1 The first steam engine and its first patent 79 3.4.2 The first sharing of steam engines 81 3.5 Coke metallurgy 83 3.5.1 Reinventions 83 3.5.2 The search for substitutes 83 3.5.3 The invention of puddling 85 3.6 Sharing around the inventions of the textile industry 87 3.6.1 Weaving and the fly-shuttle 87 3.6.2 Perforated ribbons and weaving machines 87 3.7 “Printed cotton indiennes” or copies of inventions and the organization of factories 88 3.7.1 Sectoral characteristics of the shared inventions of this period 91 3.7.2 Strong tensions 93 Chapter 4 1760–1850 or the Industrial Revolution and its Competitive Innovations 95 4.1 The transition from the emergence of machinism and its shared inventions to the Industrial Revolution and its competitive innovations 95 4.2 The Industrial Revolution and competitive innovations (1760–1850) 96 4.2.1 Competitive innovations 97 4.2.2 The contradictions of the steam engine industry 98 4.2.3 The contradictions of the textile sector 100 4.2.4 The inescapable contradictions of machine tool production 103 4.3 1851: an inventory? 104 Chapter 5 1850–1914 or the New Shared Inventions and the Birth of the Modern Large Company 107 5.1 The invention of the modern large company 107 5.2 Precursors 109 5.2.1 The “ébauches” of Frédéric Japy (1771) 109 5.2.2 Oliver Evans’ “endless mill” (1784) 110 5.2.3 Honoré Blanc’s rifles and the Springfield Armory (1790, 1819) 110 5.2.4 Thomas Tassel-Grant’s “sea biscuits” (1830) 111 5.2.5 The inventions of Mr Johann Georg Bodmer (1833 onwards) 111 5.3 The Singer Manufacturing Company and the Civil War uniforms 111 5.3.1 The sewing machine, its invention and innovations 111 5.3.2 The true birth of the sewing machine can be traced from 1849 to 1850 113 5.3.3 The sewing machine and the organization of the company 114 5.4 The Chicago Yards and their integrated slaughterhouses 115 5.4.1 The actors involved in the creation of Union Stock Yards 116 5.4.2 The operating modes of the Union Stock Yards 119 5.5 The Swiss example 121 5.6 An almost totally invented inauguration and improbable analyses 122 5.7 The management of these shared inventions 125 5.7.1 The invention of the commercialization of products 125 5.7.2 The invention of marketing 126 5.7.3 Labor and employee management 127 5.7.4 The importance of the links between management tools and shared inventions 129 Chapter 6 1914 or the Birth of Extended Machinism 131 6.1 Major changes in social dynamics 131 6.1.1 World wars 131 6.1.2 The increasing number of crises 131 6.1.3 Profound changes in terms of social dynamics 132 6.2 Large shared inventions combined with competitive innovations 134 6.2.1 The irresistible growth of electricity 134 6.2.2 The extraordinary growth of gas and oil 136 6.2.3 Maritime and air transport 137 6.2.4 Metallurgy 137 6.2.5 Machine tools 139 6.2.6 Chemistry 140 6.2.7 Agriculture 140 6.2.8 Lifestyles 141 6.2.9 Computing and the reinvention of calculating machines 143 6.2.10 Automation 146 Conclusion 149 References 157 Index 171
£132.00
Four Courts Press Ltd Marsden Haddock and the Androides: Entertainment,
Book Synopsis
£11.95
Smithsonian Books Places of Invention
Book SynopsisThe companion book to an upcoming museum exhibition of the same name, Places of Invention seeks to answer timely questions about the nature of invention and innovation: What is it about some places that sparks invention and innovation? Is it simply being at the right place at the right time, or is it more than that? How does “place”—whether physical, social, or cultural—support, constrain, and shape innovation? Why does invention flourish in one spot but struggle in another, even very similar location? In short: Why there? Why then? Places of Invention frames current and historic conversation on the relationship between place and creativity, citing extensive scholarship in the area and two decades of investigation and study from the National Museum of American History’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation. The book is built around six place case studies: Hartford, CT, late 1800s; Hollywood, CA, 1930s; Medical Alley, MN, 1950s; Bronx, NY,1970s; Silicon Valley, CA, 1970s–1980s; and Fort Collins, CO, 2010s. Interspersed with these case studies are dispatches from three “learning labs” detailing Smithsonian Affiliate museums’ work using Places of Invention as a model for documenting local invention and innovation. Written by exhibition curators, each part of the book focuses on the central thesis that invention is everywhere and fueled by unique combinations of creative people, ready resources, and inspiring surroundings. Like the locations it explores, Places of Invention shows how the history of invention can be a transformative lens for understanding local history and cultivating creativity on scales of place ranging from the personal to the national and beyond.
£31.99
Islandport Press Downeast Genius: From Earmuffs to Motor Cars,
Book Synopsis
£17.05
