Edison's Eve

Edison's Eve PDF Author: Gaby Wood
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN:
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
A rich and informative exploration of our age-old obsession with “making life.” Could an eighteenth-century mechanical duck really digest and excrete its food? Was “the Turk,” a celebrated chess-playing and -winning machine fabricated in 1769, a dazzling piece of fakery, or could it actually think? Why was Thomas Edison obsessed with making a mechanical doll—a perfect woman, mass-produced? Can a twenty-first-century robot express human emotions of its own? Taking up themes long familiar from the realms of fairy tales and science fiction, Gaby Wood traces the hidden prehistory of a modern idea—the thinking, hoaxes, and inventions that presaged contemporary robotics and the current experiments with artificial intelligence. Informed by the author’s scientific and historical research, Edison’s Eve is also a brilliant literary, cultural, and philosophical examination of the motives that have driven human beings to pursue the creation of mechanical life, and the effects of that pursuit—both in its successes and in its failures—on our sense of what makes us human.

Edison's Eve

Edison's Eve PDF Author: Gaby Wood
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN:
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Get Book Here

Book Description
A rich and informative exploration of our age-old obsession with “making life.” Could an eighteenth-century mechanical duck really digest and excrete its food? Was “the Turk,” a celebrated chess-playing and -winning machine fabricated in 1769, a dazzling piece of fakery, or could it actually think? Why was Thomas Edison obsessed with making a mechanical doll—a perfect woman, mass-produced? Can a twenty-first-century robot express human emotions of its own? Taking up themes long familiar from the realms of fairy tales and science fiction, Gaby Wood traces the hidden prehistory of a modern idea—the thinking, hoaxes, and inventions that presaged contemporary robotics and the current experiments with artificial intelligence. Informed by the author’s scientific and historical research, Edison’s Eve is also a brilliant literary, cultural, and philosophical examination of the motives that have driven human beings to pursue the creation of mechanical life, and the effects of that pursuit—both in its successes and in its failures—on our sense of what makes us human.

Tomorrow's Eve

Tomorrow's Eve PDF Author: Auguste comte de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252069550
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
"Take one inventive genius indebted to the friend who saved his life; add an English aristocrat hopelessly consumed with a selfish and spiritually bankrupt woman; stir together with a Faustian pact to create the perfect woman--and voilà! Tomorrow's Eve is served. Robert Martin Adams's graceful translation is the first to bring to English readers this captivating fable of a Thomas Edison-like inventor and his creation, the radiant and tragic android Hadaly. Adams's introduction sketches the uncompromising idealism of the proud but penurious aristocrat Jean Marie Mathias Philippe Auguste, Count Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, a friend and admired colleague of Charles Baudelaire, Stèphane Mallarmé, and Richard Wagner. Villiers dazzles us with a gallery of electronic wonders while unsettling us with the implications of his (and our) increasingly mechanized and mechanical society. A witty and acerbic tale in which human nature, spiritual values, and scientific possibilities collide, Tomorrow's Eve retains an enduring freshness and edge." --Descripción del editor.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret

The Invention of Hugo Cabret PDF Author: Brian Selznick
Publisher: Scholastic
ISBN: 1407166573
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
An orphan and thief, Hugo lives in the walls of a busy train station. He desperately believes a broken automaton will make his dreams come true. But when his world collides with an eccentric girl and a bitter old man, Hugo's undercover life are put in jeopardy. Turn the pages, follow the illustrations and enter an unforgettable new world!

Edison

Edison PDF Author: Edmund Morris
Publisher:
ISBN: 081299311X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 801

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Book Description
From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Morris comes a revelatory new biography ofThomas Alva Edison, the most prolific genius in American history.

Edison

Edison PDF Author: Edmund Morris
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0679644652
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 801

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edmund Morris comes a revelatory new biography of Thomas Alva Edison, the most prolific genius in American history. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Time • Publishers Weekly • Kirkus Reviews Although Thomas Alva Edison was the most famous American of his time, and remains an international name today, he is mostly remembered only for the gift of universal electric light. His invention of the first practical incandescent lamp 140 years ago so dazzled the world—already reeling from his invention of the phonograph and dozens of other revolutionary devices—that it cast a shadow over his later achievements. In all, this near-deaf genius (“I haven’t heard a bird sing since I was twelve years old”) patented 1,093 inventions, not including others, such as the X-ray fluoroscope, that he left unlicensed for the benefit of medicine. One of the achievements of this staggering new biography, the first major life of Edison in more than twenty years, is that it portrays the unknown Edison—the philosopher, the futurist, the chemist, the botanist, the wartime defense adviser, the founder of nearly 250 companies—as fully as it deconstructs the Edison of mythological memory. Edmund Morris, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, brings to the task all the interpretive acuity and literary elegance that distinguished his previous biographies of Theodore Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, and Ludwig van Beethoven. A trained musician, Morris is especially well equipped to recount Edison’s fifty-year obsession with recording technology and his pioneering advances in the synchronization of movies and sound. Morris sweeps aside conspiratorial theories positing an enmity between Edison and Nikola Tesla and presents proof of their mutually admiring, if wary, relationship. Enlightened by seven years of research among the five million pages of original documents preserved in Edison’s huge laboratory at West Orange, New Jersey, and privileged access to family papers still held in trust, Morris is also able to bring his subject to life on the page—the adored yet autocratic and often neglectful husband of two wives and father of six children. If the great man who emerges from it is less a sentimental hero than an overwhelming force of nature, driven onward by compulsive creativity, then Edison is at last getting his biographical due.

The Wisdom of Eve

The Wisdom of Eve PDF Author: Mary Orr
Publisher: Dramatists Play Service Inc
ISBN: 9780822214298
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 104

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Book Description
THE STORY: Adapted from the story by Mary Orr, on which the film All About Eve and the hit musical APPLAUSE were based. An engrossing and revealing inside story of life in New York's theatre world, told in terms of an unscrupulous ingenue's rise to Broa

Living Dolls

Living Dolls PDF Author: Gaby Wood
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 9780571178797
Category : Androids
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
Living Dolls tells the story of humanity's age-old obsession with moving dolls and speaking robots, intelligent machines and bionic men - and it gives the history of ingenious inventors and their fantastical creations.

Edison

Edison PDF Author: Paul Israel
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0471362700
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 565

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Book Description
Ein Bestseller jetzt neu als Broschurausgabe! Die gebundene Ausgabe erzielte hervorragende Kritiken im Daily Telegraph, New Scientist, The Independent und in der Sunday Times - um nur einige zu nennen. Israel hatte erstmals Zugang zu Werkstatt-Tagebüchern, Briefen und mehr als fünf Millionen Seiten Archivmaterial. Auf der Basis dieser Informationen hat er die erste maßgebende Biographie von Edison verfaßt. Zum ersten Mal wird Edisons Karriere als Erfinder systematisch untersucht und bewertet. Im Detail wird erforscht, wie er u.a. mit der Erfindung des elektrischen Lichts, der Photographie und mehr als tausend anderen Dingen das 20. Jahrhundert prägte. Dies ist auch die erste Biographie, die Edison im Zusammenhang mit dem rapiden industriellen Wandel betrachtet, indem die Auswirkungen dieses Wandels auf seine Erfindungen beschrieben werden. Dieses Buch liefert eine Fülle neuer Informationen über Edison und seine Erfindungen. Eine interessante und spannende Lektüre. (y03/00)

Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison PDF Author: Hourly History
Publisher: Hourly History
ISBN: 1520674465
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 45

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Book Description
Thomas Edison passed on many decades ago, but his inventions still echo loudly through time. If you watch TV, listen to your favorite songs, or simply click on the lamp next to your bed, it was Thomas Edison who brought all of these innovations into the world. Inside you will read about... ✓ Edison's Early Life ✓ The Electric Light ✓ The War of the Currents ✓ Other Inventions and Projects ✓ Final Years and Death ✓ Edison's Legacy And much more! Edison is sometimes regarded as someone who loved arguing with other inventors who were going in different directions from him, yet his tenacity and dedication to his own work were what made so many of his inventions workable. No matter which way you look at Edison, from failed businessman, renowned inventor, distant father to his children, or to an argumentative scientist, there is one thing everyone can agree on; Thomas Edison was pure genius. After all, in his world, nothing less would do.

Edison's Conquest Of Mars

Edison's Conquest Of Mars PDF Author: Garrett Putman Serviss
Publisher: Namaskar Books
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
Embark on an exhilarating adventure in science fiction with "Edison's Conquest of Mars" by Garrett Putman Serviss. In this groundbreaking novel, the brilliant inventor Thomas Edison leads an audacious expedition to the Red Planet, blending the realms of science and imagination in an epic tale of exploration and innovation. Set in the early 20th century, Serviss’s narrative captures the spirit of discovery and the quest for knowledge that defined an era. Join Edison and his team as they navigate the challenges of interplanetary travel, encountering alien civilizations, mysterious landscapes, and thrilling challenges that test their ingenuity and resolve. Through a captivating blend of adventure, technology, and philosophical exploration, this novel not only entertains but also sparks the imagination, reflecting the hopes and dreams of a society on the brink of a new age of discovery. Serviss's visionary work serves as a tribute to Edison's legacy and the power of human innovation. As the characters confront the unknown, readers will be drawn into a world where the limits of science are pushed, and the possibilities of the universe are explored. With rich descriptions and engaging dialogue, Serviss invites you to ponder the implications of progress and the future of humanity. Are you ready to join Edison on his quest for knowledge and adventure among the stars? Don’t miss the chance to experience "Edison's Conquest of Mars" and explore the wonders of the universe through the eyes of one of history's greatest inventors. Order your copy today and get ready for an unforgettable journey!