Exactly

How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World

By: Simon Winchester

Narrated by: Simon Winchester

Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's summary

SHORTLISTED FOR THE ROYAL SOCIETY SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE 2018

Best-selling author Simon Winchester writes a magnificent history of the pioneering engineers who developed precision machinery to allow us to see as far as the moon and as close as the Higgs boson.

Precision is the key to everything. It is an integral, unchallenged and essential component of our modern social, mercantile, scientific, mechanical and intellectual landscapes. The items we value in our daily lives - a camera, a phone, a computer, a bicycle, a car, a dishwasher perhaps - all sport components that fit together with precision and operate with near perfection. We also assume that the more precise a device the better it is. And yet whilst we live lives peppered and larded with precision, we are not, when we come to think about it, entirely sure what precision is or what it means. How and when did it begin to build the modern world?

Simon Winchester seeks to answer these questions through stories of precision’s pioneers. Exactly takes us back to the origins of the Industrial Age, to Britain where he introduces the scientific minds that helped usher in modern production: John ‘Iron-Mad’ Wilkinson, Henry Maudslay, Joseph Bramah, Jesse Ramsden and Joseph Whitworth. Thomas Jefferson exported their discoveries to the United States as manufacturing developed in the early 20th century, with Britain’s Henry Royce developing the Rolls-Royce and Henry Ford mass producing cars, Hattori’s Seiko and Leica lenses, to today’s cutting-edge developments from Europe, Asia and North America.

As he introduces the minds and methods that have changed the modern world, Winchester explores fundamental questions. Why is precision important? What are the different tools we use to measure it? Who has invented and perfected it? Has the pursuit of the ultra-precise in so many facets of human life blinded us to other things of equal value, such as an appreciation for the age-old traditions of craftsmanship, art, and high culture? Are we missing something that reflects the world as it is rather than the world as we think we would wish it to be? And can the precise and the natural coexist in society?

©2018 Simon Winchester (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic reviews

"An ingenious argument that the dazzling advances that produced the scientific revolution, the industrial revolution, and the revolutions that followed owe their success to a single engineering element: precision.... An enthusiastic popular-science tour of technological marvels...readers will love the ride." (Kirkus)

"Another gem from one of the world’s justly celebrated historians specializing in unusual and always fascinating subjects and people." (Booklist)

"Winchester’s latest is a rollicking work of pop science that entertains and informs." (Publishers Weekly)

Lyrical, scientific, fascinating

His turn of phrase is impeccable.
His scientific explanations are flawless.
His storytelling is exquisite.
Winchester is clearly a doyen in so many fields. If I could be 50% as articulate as Winchester, I would be satisfied!

Consumable Engineering. Excellent!

Satisfying when the author has the right speaking voice for his own body. Fascinating on both personal (anecdotal) and sweep of history levels. Well researched, nicely structured, well paced. I enjoyed this greatly - and furnished my mind in the process.

Brilliant

I get something new out of this publication each time I listen to it. Easy to listen too, very informative.