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A Mind at Play
- How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
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A Mind at Play
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Publisher's summary
Claude Shannon was a tinkerer, a playful wunderkind, a groundbreaking polymath, and a digital pioneer whose insights made the Information Age possible. He constructed fire-breathing trumpets and customized unicycles, outfoxed Vegas casinos, and built juggling robots, but he also wrote the seminal text of the Digital Revolution. That work allowed scientists to measure and manipulate information as objectively as any physical object. His work gave mathematicians and engineers the tools to bring that world to pass.
Now, Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman bring Claude Shannon's story to life. It's the story of a small-town boy from Michigan whose career stretched from the age of room-sized computers powered by gears and string to the age of the Apple desktop. It's the story of the origins of information in the tunnels of MIT and the "idea factory" of Bell Labs, in the "scientists' war" with Nazi Germany, and in the work of Shannon's collaborators and rivals. It's the story of Shannon's life as an often reclusive, always playful genius. With access to Shannon's family and friends, A Mind at Play explores the life and times of this singular innovator and creative genius.
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Checkers, backgammon, chess, and Go. Poker, Scrabble, and bridge. These seven games, ancient and modern, fascinate millions of people worldwide. In Seven Games, Oliver Roeder charts their origins and historical importance, the arcana of their rules, and the ways their design makes them pleasurable.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Mostly about AI
- By A. Hoffmann on 04-08-22
By: Oliver Roeder
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The Theory That Would Not Die
- How Bayes' Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy
- By: Sharon Bertsch McGrayne
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 487
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 409
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 409
Bayes' rule appears to be a straightforward, one-line theorem: by updating our initial beliefs with objective new information, we get a new and improved belief. To its adherents, it is an elegant statement about learning from experience. To its opponents, it is subjectivity run amok. Sharon Bertsch McGrayne here explores this controversial theorem and the human obsessions surrounding it.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Who is the intended audience?
- By Billy on 07-21-14
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Alan Turing
- Unlocking The Enigma
- By: David Boyle
- Narrated by: Barnaby Edwards
- Length: 2 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 409
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 339
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 335
Alan Mathison Turing. Mathematician, philosopher, codebreaker, a founder of computer science, and the father of Artificial Intelligence, Turing was one of the most original thinkers of the last century - and the man whose work helped create the computer-driven world we now inhabit. But he was also an enigmatic figure, deeply reticent yet also strikingly naive. Turing's openness about his homosexuality at a time when it was an imprisonable offense ultimately led to his untimely death at the age of only 41.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating look at a fascinating man
- By kwestrope on 10-16-18
By: David Boyle
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Tuxedo Park
- A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II
- By: Jennet Conant
- Narrated by: John Kroft
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 104
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 98
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 98
In the late 1930s, legendary financier, philanthropist, and society figure Alfred Lee Loomis gathered the most visionary scientific minds of the 20th century at his state-of-the-art laboratory in Tuxedo Park, New York. He established a top-secret defense laboratory at MIT and personally bankrolled pioneering research into new, high-powered radar detection systems that helped defeat the German Air Force and U-boats. With Ernest Lawrence, he pushed Franklin Delano Roosevelt to fund research in nuclear fission, which led to the development of the atomic bomb.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fantastic book, weak technical execution
- By Paul on 10-13-18
By: Jennet Conant
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The Strangest Man
- The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom
- By: Graham Farmelo
- Narrated by: B. J. Harrison
- Length: 19 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 637
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 443
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 450
Paul Dirac was among the great scientific geniuses of the modern age. One of the discoverers of quantum mechanics, the most revolutionary theory of the past century, his contributions had a unique insight, eloquence, clarity, and mathematical power. His prediction of antimatter was one of the greatest triumphs in the history of physics.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Excellent biography of great physicist
- By Eileen on 05-09-13
By: Graham Farmelo
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Significant Figures
- The Lives and Work of Great Mathematicians
- By: Ian Stewart
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 251
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 210
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 210
In Significant Figures, acclaimed mathematician Ian Stewart introduces the visionaries of mathematics throughout history. Delving into the lives of twenty-five great mathematicians, Stewart examines the roles they played in creating, inventing, and discovering the mathematics we use today. Through these short biographies, we get acquainted with the history of mathematics.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Beware
- By Anton Kurtz on 12-08-18
By: Ian Stewart
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American Sketches
- Great Leaders, Creative Thinkers, and Heroes of a Hurricane
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Cotter Smith
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 224
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 180
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Story4 out of 5 stars 183
In this collection of essays, Walter Isaacson reflects on the lessons to be learned from Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton, and various other interesting characters he has chronicled as a biographer and journalist. The people he writes about have an awesome intelligence, in most cases, but that is not the secret of their success.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Not Really Sketches
- By DAVID on 11-04-11
By: Walter Isaacson
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The Pleasure of Finding Things Out
- The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman
- By: Richard P. Feynman
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 8 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,815
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,563
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,555
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out is a magnificent treasury of the best short works of Richard P. Feynman, from interviews and speeches to lectures and printed articles. A sweeping, wide-ranging collection, it presents an intimate and fascinating view of a life in science - a life like no other. From his ruminations on science in our culture to his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, this book will delight anyone interested in the world of ideas.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Interesting, but material is covered in better book.
- By Erlend on 04-06-16
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The Friendly Orange Glow
- The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture
- By: Brian Dear
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 21 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 116
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 107
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 107
At a time when Steve Jobs was only a teenager and Mark Zuckerberg wasn't even born, a group of visionary engineers and designers - some of them only high school students - in the late 1960s and 1970s created a computer system called PLATO, which was not only years but light-years ahead in experimenting with how people would learn, engage, communicate, and play through connected computers.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Memory lane for the cyberist.
- By Robert C. Hickcox on 08-08-18
By: Brian Dear
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Thinking Machines
- The Quest for Artificial Intelligence - and Where It's Taking Us Next
- By: Luke Dormehl
- Narrated by: Gus Brown
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 60
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4 out of 5 stars 51
When most of us think about artificial intelligence, our minds go straight to cyborgs, robots, and sci-fi thrillers where machines take over the world. But the truth is that artificial intelligence is already among us. It exists in our smartphones, fitness trackers, and refrigerators that tell us when the milk will expire. In some ways the future people dreamed of at the World's Fair in the 1960s is already here. We're teaching our machines how to think like humans, and they're learning at an incredible rate.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Mostly platitudes with no depth
- By Gary on 03-24-17
By: Luke Dormehl
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The Equation That Couldn't Be Solved
- How Mathematical Genius Discovered the Language of Symmetry
- By: Mario Livio
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 67
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 58
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 58
For thousands of years mathematicians solved progressively more difficult algebraic equations, until they encountered the quintic equation, which resisted solution for three centuries. Working independently, two prodigies ultimately proved that the quintic cannot be solved by a simple formula. The first popular account of the mathematics of symmetry and order, The Equation That Couldn't Be Solved is told not through abstract formulas but in a beautifully written and dramatic account of the lives and work of some of the greatest and most intriguing mathematicians in history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Historical Perspective Appreciated
- By Michael Hanrahan on 01-22-20
By: Mario Livio
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The Age of Entanglement
- When Quantum Physics was Reborn
- By: Louisa Gilder
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 14 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 316
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 199
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Story4 out of 5 stars 202
A brilliantly original and richly illuminating exploration of entanglement, the seemingly telepathic communication between two separated particles - one of the fundamental concepts of quantum physics.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Quite nice
- By Michael on 02-14-10
By: Louisa Gilder
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Strategic Intuition
- The Creative Spark in Human Achievement
- By: Bill Duggan
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 6 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 200
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 81
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Story4 out of 5 stars 81
How "Aha!" really happens....When do you get your best ideas? You probably answer "At night" or "In the shower" or "Stuck in traffic". You get a flash of insight. Things come together in your mind. You connect the dots. You say to yourself, "Aha! I see what to do." Brain science now reveals how these flashes of insight happen. It's a special form of intuition. We call it strategic intuition, because it gives you an idea for action - a strategy. This new book by William Duggan is the first full treatment of strategic intuition.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Stratigic Intuition
- By Amazon Customer on 12-17-08
By: Bill Duggan
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Headstrong
- 52 Women Who Changed Science-and the World
- By: Rachel Swaby
- Narrated by: Lauren Fortgang
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 64
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 54
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 54
In 2013, the New York Times published an obituary for Yvonne Brill. It began: “She made a mean beef stroganoff, followed her husband from job to job, and took eight years off from work to raise three children.” It wasn’t until the second paragraph that readers discovered why the Times had devoted several hundred words to her life: Brill was a brilliant rocket scientist who invented a propulsion system to keep communications satellites in orbit, and had recently been awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Role models for young women
- By mtsuda90 on 06-25-16
By: Rachel Swaby
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The Upright Thinkers
- The Human Journey From Living in Trees to Understanding the Cosmos
- By: Leonard Mlodinow
- Narrated by: Leonard Mlodinow
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 202
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 178
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 179
In this fascinating and illuminating work, Leonard Mlodinow guides us through the critical eras and events in the development of science, all of which, he demonstrates, were propelled forward by humankind's collective struggle to know. From the birth of reasoning and culture to the formation of the studies of physics, chemistry, biology, and modern-day quantum physics, we come to see that much of our progress can be attributed to simple questions - why? how? - bravely asked.
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5 out of 5 stars
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10/10 Got What I Wanted.
- By Austin on 09-22-15
By: Leonard Mlodinow
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 55
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