Frank Whittle (Icon Science)

Author: Andrew Nahum
Publisher: Icon Books
ISBN: 1785782568
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 166

Book Description
The story of the jet engine has everything: genius, tragedy, heroism, a world war, the individual vs. the state, and an idea that would change the world. Frank Whittle always maintained that he was held back by a lack of government support. At the very moment in 1943 when his invention was unveiled to the world, his company, Power Jets, was forcibly nationalised. Yet Whittle's brilliance, charm and charisma helped him recruit major support from the British government and the RAF, who gave him the green light to build a jet engine at a time when to do so made little sense. Here is a story of what pushing technology to its limits can achieve - and the effect that such achievement can have on those involved.

Knowledge is Power (Icon Science)

Author: John Henry
Publisher: Icon Books
ISBN: 1785782517
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 178

Book Description
Francis Bacon - a leading figure in the history of science - never made a major discovery, provided a lasting explanation of any physical phenomena or revealed any hidden laws of nature. How then can he rank as he does alongside Newton? Bacon was the first major thinker to describe how science should be done, and to explain why. Scientific knowledge should not be gathered for its own sake but for practical benefit to mankind. And Bacon promoted experimentation, coming to outline and define the rigorous procedures of the 'scientific method' that today from the very bedrock of modern scientific progress. John Henry gives a dramatic account of the background to Bacon's innovations and the sometimes unconventional sources for his ideas. Why was he was so concerned to revolutionize the attitude to scientific knowledge - and why do his ideas for reform still resonate today?

Turing and the Universal Machine (Icon Science)

Author: Jon Agar
Publisher: Icon Books
ISBN: 1785782533
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 134

Book Description
The history of the computer is entwined with that of the modern world and most famously with the life of one man, Alan Turing. How did this device, which first appeared a mere 50 years ago, come to structure and dominate our lives so totally? An enlightening mini-biography of a brilliant but troubled man.

Constant Touch

Author: Jon Agar
Publisher: Icon Books Ltd
ISBN: 1848315260
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 263

Book Description
Mobile phones are a ubiquitous technology with a fascinating history. There are now as many mobile phones in the world as there are people. We carry them around with us wherever we go. And while we used to just speak into them, now mobiles are used to do all kinds of tasks, from talking to twittering, from playing a game to paying a bill. Jon Agar takes the mobile to pieces, tracing what makes it work, and puts it together again, showing how it was shaped in different national contexts in the United States, Europe, the Far East and Africa. He tells the story from the early associations with cars and the privileged, through its immense popular success, to the rise of the smartphone. Few scientific revolutions affect us in such a day-to-day way as the development of the mobile phone. Jon Agar's deft history explains exactly how this revolution has come about - and where it may lead in the future.

Making Jet Engines in World War II

Author: Hermione Giffard
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022638859X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 362

Book Description
Our stories of industrial innovation tend to focus on individual initiative and breakthroughs. Hermione Giffard uses the case of the development of jet engines to offer a different way of understanding technological innovation, revealing the complicated mix of factors that go into any decision to pursue an innovative, and therefore risky technology.

Icons of Invention [2 volumes]

Author: John W. Klooster
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313347441
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 720

Book Description
These two volumes provide in-depth coverage of 24 of history's most important inventors and their inventions. Who invented the sewing machine, the telephone, the internal combustion engine? Who pioneered vaccination? Who gave the world television, nylon, the nuclear reactor? The answers to some of these questions are straightforward, the answers to others much less so. All of them are explored in the fascinating Icons of Invention: The Makers of the Modern World from Gutenberg to Gates. This in-depth resource tells the stories of 24 of the most influential and well-known inventions of the modern age—and of the individuals most responsible for their development. Presented in chronological order, the entries provide background on the lives and work of inventors such as Thomas Edison, Alexander Fleming, and Tim Berners-Lee. At the same time, the set profiles their competitors and details the sometimes-controversial, often-mistake-plagued routes almost all of them took to their most famous creations.

Moving Heaven and Earth (Icon Science)

Author: John Henry
Publisher: Icon Books
ISBN: 1785782703
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 134

Book Description
When Nicolaus Copernicus claimed that the Earth was not stationary at the centre of the universe but circled the Sun, he brought about a total revolution in the sciences and consternation in the Church. Copernicus’ theory demanded a new physics to explain motion and force, a new theory of space, and a completely new conception of the nature of our universe. He also showed for the first time that a common-sense view of things isn’t necessarily correct, and that mathematics can and does reveal the true nature of the material world. As John Henry reveals, from his idea of a swiftly moving Earth Copernicus sowed the seed from which science has grown to be a dominant aspect of modern culture, fundamental in shaping our understanding of the workings of the cosmos.

Frank Whittle

Author: Andrew Nahum
Publisher: Icon Books
ISBN: 9781785782411
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
The story of the jet engine has everything: genius, tragedy, heroism, a world war, the individual vs. the state, and an idea that would change the world. Frank Whittle always maintained that he was held back by a lack of government support. At the very moment in 1943 when his invention was unveiled to the world, his company, Power Jets, was forcibly nationalised. Yet, as Andrew Nahum shows in this brilliantly researched book, Whittle's innovative brilliance, charm and charisma helped him recruit major support from the British government and the RAF, who gave him the green light 'to build a jet engine' at a time when to do so made little sense. Frank Whittle: Invention of the Jet is a story of what pushing technology to its limits can achieve and the effect that such achievement can have on those involved. 'Read it and] learn more about what really happened.' Guardian

The Comet Sweeper (Icon Science)

Author: Claire Brock
Publisher: Icon Books
ISBN: 1785781677
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Book Description
Having escaped domestic servitude in Germany by teaching herself to sing, and established a career in England, Caroline Herschel learned astronomy while helping her brother William, then Astronomer Royal. Soon making scientific discoveries in her own right, she swept to international scientific and popular fame. She was awarded a salary by George III in 1787 – the first woman in Britain to make her living from science. But, as a woman in a male-dominated world, Herschel's great success was achieved despite constant frustration of her ambitions. Drawing on original sources – including Herschel's diaries and her fiery letters – Claire Brock tells the story of a woman determined to win independence and satisfy her astronomical ambition.

Eureka! (Icon Science)

Author: Andrew Gregory
Publisher: Icon Books
ISBN: 1785781928
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 182

Book Description
Medicine, anatomy, astronomy, mathematics and cosmology, science began with the Greeks, and Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Archimedes and Hippocrates were amongst its stars. That man ever managed to develop a 'scientific' attitude to the natural world at all is one of the true wonders of human thought. Eureka! shows how, free from intellectual and religious dogma, these early thinkers rejected myths and capricious gods and, in distinguishing between the natural and supernatural, effectively discovered nature. Andrew Gregory, Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at University College London, unravels the genesis of science in this fascinating exploration of the origins of Western civilisation, and our desire for a rational, legitimating system of the world.