Showing titles in History

Is it possible for something or someone to be made invisible? This question, which has intrigued authors of science fiction for over a century, has become a headline-grabbing topic of scientific research. In this book, science writer and optical physicist Gregory J. Gbur traces the science of invisibility from its sci-fi origins in the nineteenth-century writings of authors such as H. G. Wells and Fitz James O'Brien to modern stealth technology, invisibility cloaks, and metamaterials. He explores the history of invisibility and its science and technology connections.

In Analogia, technology historian George Dyson presents a startling look back at the analog age and life before the digital revolution - and an unsettling vision of what comes next.

Now including a new afterword! An instant New York Times bestseller from award-winning journalist Kara Swisher, Burn Book is a “highly readable…bawdy, brash, and compulsively thought-provoking” (Booklist, starred review) account of the tech industry and its founders who wanted to change...

In the tradition of Guns, Germs, and Steel, Enlightenment Now, and Sapiens, Michael Magoon shows us that by learning from the past, we can let go of our negative attitudes about the present, and change our world for the better. For virtually all of history, humanity was trapped in poverty by geographical constraints. Fortunately for us, a few societies invented the five keys to progress (productive agriculture, cities, decentralization of power, export industries, and fossil fuels), laying the foundations for our current progress.

Many of us learn about the major inventions that shape our world. But we too often overlook the objects we use every day. In The Story Behind, Emily Prokop, creator of the Webby Award nominated podcast, explores the who, how, and huh? of everything from Band-Aids to bubble gum; hypnosis to Hula Hoops; and lullabies to lead pipes. Along the way, she demonstrates how the major events of history - from wars, plagues and revolutions to historic achievements and discoveries - have influenced some of the world’s most pervasive inventions. 

Designers & Dragons: The ‘00s is a comprehensive picture of the new resurgence of the RPG industry. This 2nd edition expands the original single book into a series of four–beginning with the ’70s and ending with the ’00s–and we’ve added over tens of thousands of new words to this final and most updated volume. Take an inside look at d20 companies, watch the growth of new titans like Paizo Publishing, and learn about the growth of indie presses like Evil Hat Productions. Regardless of your gaming background, Shannon Appelcline’s meticulously researched history won’t disappoint.

If you loved Hidden Figures or The Rise of the Rocket Girls, you'll love Claire Evans' breakthrough book on the women who brought you the internet--written out of history, until now. "This is a radically important, timely work," says Miranda July, filmmaker and author of The First Bad Man. The...

Award-winning author and mathematician Joseph Mazur provides an engaging exploration of how the understanding of time has evolved throughout human history and offers a compelling new vision, submitting that time lives within us. Our cells, he notes, have a temporal awareness, guided by environmental cues in sync with patterns of social interaction. Listeners learn that, as a consequence of time's personal nature, a 48-hour journey on the Space Shuttle can feel shorter than a six-hour trip on the Soyuz capsule and that the Amondawa of the Amazon do not have ages.

After the Apollo program put 12 men on the moon and safely brought them home, anything seemed possible. In this spirit, the team at NASA set about developing the space shuttle, arguably the most complex piece of machinery ever created.

The Great Digital Convergence of all media types into one universal digital medium occurred, with little fanfare, at the recent turn of the millennium. The bit became the universal medium, and the pixel conquered the world. Henceforward, nearly every picture in the world would be composed of pixels. In A Biography of the Pixel, Pixar cofounder Alvy Ray Smith argues that the pixel is the organizing principle of most modern media, and he presents a few simple but profound ideas that unify the dazzling varieties of digital image making.

En esta monumental historia, Vaclav Smil ofrece una impresionante panorámica de cómo la energía ha impulsado el progreso cultural y económico de las sociedades humanas durante los últimos diez mil años, desde los primeros grupos de cazadores-recolectores hasta la civilización fósil, pasando por las sociedades agrícolas tradicionales y la "gran transición" que lo cambió todo.

It’s a signal paradox of our times that we live in an information society but do not know how it works. And without understanding how our information is stored, used, and protected, we are vulnerable to having it exploited. In Fancy Bear Goes Phishing, Scott J. Shapiro draws on his popular Yale University class about hacking to expose the secrets of the digital age. With lucidity and wit, he establishes that cybercrime has less to do with defective programming than with the faulty wiring of our psyches and society. 

Time and predictability allows for some of the most extraordinary breakthrough inventions to be taken for granted in our modern life. Through eloquent and artfully illustrated verse Lande Jewels rediscovers the key paradigms and theories that shaped the science we know today. From heliocentrism to quantum mechanics and from MRI to Michael Faraday's electric motor, the history is told a poem at a time.

By turns fascinating and scary, Artificial Intelligence takes the listener on an amazing journey that covers everything from the habits of ants to the world of the stock market. This edition has been fully updated to take account of the latest developments.

In this book in praise of wait times, award-winning author Jason Farman passionately argues that the delay between call and answer has always been an important part of the message. Traveling backward from our current era of Twitter and texts, Farman describes how societies have worked to eliminate waiting in communication and how they have interpreted those times' meanings. And in a rebuttal to the demand for instant communication, Farman makes a powerful case for why good things can come to those who wait.

In this fully revised and updated edition of his internationally best-selling book, pioneering theorist and entrepreneur Matthew Ball goes beyond the hype cycle to present a definitive account of the future of the internet. The Metaverse, according to Ball’s industry-shaping definition, is a persistent and interconnected network of 3D virtual worlds that will eventually serve as the gateway to most online experiences and underpin much of the physical world.

An “informative and highly readable” (Foreign Affairs) breakdown of the history of electricity and the impact of global energy use on the world and the environment Global demand for power is doubling every two decades, but electricity remains one of the most difficult forms of energy to...

Few of us give much thought to computer code or how it comes to be. The very word “code” makes it sound immutable or even inevitable. “You Are Not Expected to Understand This” demonstrates that, far from being preordained, computer code is the result of very human decisions, ones we all live with when we use social media, take photos, drive our cars, and engage in a host of other activities.

“An engrossing microcosm of the internet’s Wild West years” (Kirkus Reviews), award-winning journalist David Kushner tells the incredible battle between the founder of Match.com and the con man who swindled him out of the website Sex.com, resulting in an all-out war for control for what...

Desde su invención en los años cincuenta del pasado siglo, los videojuegos se han convertido progresivamente y de manera imparable en uno de los mayores fenómenos culturales, artísticos y sociales contemporáneos.