The Most Powerful Idea in the World - A Story of Steam, Industry and Invention
If all measures of human advancement in the last hundred centuries were plotted on a graph, they would show an almost perfectly flat line--until the eighteenth century, when the Industrial Revolutionwould cause the line to shoot straight up, beginning an almost uninterrupted march of progress. In The Most Powerful Idea in the World, William Rosentells the story of the men responsible for the Industrial Revolution and the machine that drove it--the steam engine. In the process he tackles the question that has obsessed historians ever since: What madeeighteenth-century Britain such fertile soil for inventors?
A unique and fascinating introduction to the amazing variety of inventions, both ancient and modern: from simple machines such as wheels, gears, pulleys, and levers, Invention charts the developments of weights and measures, writing utensils, early watches, and navigation aids. Finally, there are the inventions that have revolutionized the modern era from telephones and radios to television and plastics. See what Galileo's telescope looked like, and the earliest photographs ever taken. Learn how the first records were made and how surgical operations were performed in the 19th century. Discover what makes a clock tick, why a battery produces electricity, and much, much more.
The Genius of China: 3,000 Years of Science, Discovery, and InventionRevised, full-color illustrated edition of the multi-award-winning, international bestseller that charts the unparalleled and astounding achievement of ancient China • Brings to life one hundred Chinese “firsts” in the fields of agriculture, astronomy, engineering, mathematics, medicine, music, technology, and warfare • Based on the definitive work of the world’s most famous Sinologist, Joseph Needham (1900-1995), author of Science and Civilisation in China
The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention
The Industrial Revolution inspires more academic theories than absorbing narratives. Rosen, however, crafts one from subplots that connect with primitive industrialism's premier symbol: the steam engine. Ardent about historical technology, Rosen modulates his mechanical zeal with contexts underscoring that Thomas Newcomen and James Watt did not operate in a social vacuum. Fixing on patents as one prerequisite to their inventions, Rosen describes intellectual property's English legal and philosophical origins as he segues to Newcomen's and Watt's backgrounds.
Victorian Technology - Invention, Innovation and the Rise of the Machine
An enlightening history of 19th-century technology, focusing on the connections between invention and cultural values. In 1822, Charles Babbage unveiled his Difference Engine—a mechanical device made of thousands of hand-tooled parts that could calculate large numbers with unprecedented precision. In other words, it was the prototype of the computer—one of many Victorian-era innovations that foreshadowed the technologies that define our world.
