Modern Inventors

Nikola Tesla, a Serbian immigrant, invented the radio, the induction motor, the neon lamp, and the remote control. Tesla's personal life was magnificently bizarre. Strikingly handsome and impeccably dressed, he was germophobic and never shook hands. He required nine napkins when he sat down to dinner. In later years, he ate only white food and conversed with the pigeons in Bryant Park. This clear, authoritative, and highly enjoyable biography takes account of all phases of this remarkable life.

He made the impossible appear real—and devoted his life to exposing those who claimed it was. John Nevil Maskelyne began his career as a provincial watchmaker with an instinct for hidden mechanisms. In 1865, after witnessing the celebrated Davenport Brothers perform their supposed spirit manifestations in Cheltenham, he publicly declared that he could reproduce their wonders without supernatural assistance. That challenge transformed his life. Alongside George Alfred Cooke, Maskelyne rose from amateur performer to one of Victorian Britain’s most influential illusionists. At London’s ...

Referred to as "the father of psychoanalysis", Sigmund Freud is credited with championing the "talking cure" and charting the human unconscious. Both revered and reviled, he was a brilliant innovator but also a man of troubling contradictions, sometimes tyrannical, often misrepresenting the course and outcome of his treatments to make the "facts" match his theories.

Who invented it? The answer is often more complicated—and far more fascinating—than most people realize. From blood banking and personal computers to video games, GPS, home security systems, electric lighting, and space exploration, the modern world has been shaped by countless brilliant minds. Among them are Black inventors, scientists, engineers, physicians, and mathematicians whose contributions have often been overlooked, misunderstood, or forgotten. In Black Innovators, author Frederick Amakom tells the remarkable true stories of the pioneers who changed history—not through myths...

In 1929, Edwin Hubble announced the greatest discovery in the history of astronomy since Galileo first turned a telescope to the heavens. The galaxies, previously believed to float serenely in the void, are in fact hurtling apart at an incredible speed: the universe is expanding. This stunning discovery was the culmination of a decades-long arc of scientific and technical advancement.

“A house of wonders itself. . . . Wonderland inspires grins and well-what-d'ya-knows” —The New York Times Book Review From the New York Times–bestselling author of How We Got to Now and Extra Life, a look at the world-changing innovations we made while keeping ourselves...

A woman supervises the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge because the men in charge can’t. A rocket scientist designs a machine powerful enough to carry humans to the Moon. An ironworker builds a tower in Paris that the whole city hates, until it becomes the most visited monument on Earth. Inside Extraordinary Engineers, the latest volume in the bestselling Famous in STEM series, you’ll meet the builders, inventors, and visionaries who turned impossible ideas into the structures, machines, and systems that define the modern world. Discover the engineers who built the future: • ...

Accidents happen. Sometimes that’s a good thing. Did you realize cheese puffs, Coca-Cola, Bubble Wrap, and the Post-it note were all invented by accident? This audiobook covers fascinating origin stories of 60 everyday items that were invented by accident; that is, the inventor did not expect to make the product when the product was discovered. Not only will this audiobook share amazing stories about everyday products, but it will also inspire you. We all encounter things that go wrong, and this audiobook reminds us that when life gives lemons, we can make lemonade.

Nine remarkable men produced inventions that changed the world. The printing press, the telephone, powered flight, recording, and other innovations have made the modern world what it is. But who had these ideas and made realities of them? As David Angus explains, they were very different: quiet, boisterous, confident, or withdrawn. But all had a moment of vision that they combined with single-minded determination to battle through numerous obstacles and produce something that really worked.

History isn’t shaped only by kings, generals, and presidents. It’s shaped by people working quietly in the background—people whose names rarely appear in textbooks, but whose decisions still affect your life every day. The phone in your pocket. The food in your pantry. The vaccines that protect you. The systems that keep planes in the air and cities running. None of it just happened. Unsung tells the stories of fifty individuals whose choices reshaped the modern world while history looked the other way. They weren’t powerful or famous. Many were overlooked, dismissed, or forgotten. ...

In medicine, machines can be used to take detailed pictures of bones and even to save people’s lives. Listen to learn about the marvelous machines of modern medicine, like the defibrillator, the x-ray machine, and more!

He built the world's first programmable machine in 1206. We are still using his ideas today. In a palace workshop in what is now southeastern Turkey, a craftsman named Ismail al-Jazari spent fifty years building wonders. Clockwork elephants that told the time. Mechanical musicians who played music on demand. Double-action pumps that raised water from rivers to fields. A crankshaft-and-connecting-rod assembly that became the mechanical heart of every piston engine ever built. He called himself a craftsman. History would call him the father of modern engineering. The Hands That Outlasted ...

My sole intention in engaging the listeners of this audio book is to point out something within each listener that is similar to the other. What I will attempt to do is to establish a set of tendencies, personality traits, and similarities amongst a particular sect of creative people who are widely called “makers”. These collective traits make up what I will refer to as “The Maker Mindset”.

One thing that hasn't changed much at all in the last 10,000 years is the human brain. The relentless curiosity of the human mind, combined with our ability to solve problems, has resulted in huge innovation and change. Here, then, are some of the most revolutionary ideas of the last 300 years.

In the Fall of 1970, at the start of eighth grade, Peter Selgin fell in love with the young teacher who'd arrived from Oxford wearing Frye boots, with long blond hair and a passion for his students that was as intense as it was rebellious. The son of an emotionally remote inventor, Peter was also a twin competing for the attention and affection of his parents. He had a burning need to feel special. The new teacher supplied that need.