Author: Alec Nevala-Lee
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062947249
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 529
Get Book
Book Description
One of Esquire's 50 Best Biographies of All Time * One of The Economist's Best Books of 2022 * A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * Nominated for The Next Big Idea Club * The Week Magazine Book of the Week From Alec Nevala-Lee, the author of the Hugo and Locus Award finalist Astounding, comes a revelatory biography of the visionary designer who defined the rules of startup culture and shaped America’s idea of the future. During his lifetime, Buckminster Fuller was hailed as one of the greatest geniuses of the twentieth century. As the architectural designer and futurist best known for the geodesic dome, he enthralled a vast popular audience, inspired devotion from both the counterculture and the establishment, and was praised as a modern Leonardo da Vinci. To his admirers, he exemplified what one man could accomplish by approaching urgent design problems using a radically unconventional set of strategies, which he based on a mystical conception of the universe’s geometry. His views on sustainability, as embodied in the image of Spaceship Earth, convinced him that it was possible to provide for all humanity through the efficient use of planetary resources. From Epcot Center to the molecule named in his honor as the buckyball, Fuller’s legacy endures to this day, and his belief in the transformative potential of technology profoundly influenced the founders of Silicon Valley. Inventor of the Future is the first authoritative biography to cover all aspects of Fuller’s career. Drawing on meticulous research, dozens of interviews, and thousands of unpublished documents, Nevala-Lee has produced a riveting portrait that transcends the myth of Fuller as an otherworldly generalist. It reconstructs the true origins of his most famous inventions, including the Dymaxion Car, the Wichita House, and the dome itself; his fraught relationships with his students and collaborators; his interactions with Frank Lloyd Wright, Isamu Noguchi, Clare Boothe Luce, John Cage, Steve Jobs, and many others; and his tumultuous private life, in which his determination to succeed on his own terms came at an immense personal cost. In an era of accelerating change, Fuller’s example remains enormously relevant, and his lessons for designers, activists, and innovators are as powerful and essential as ever.
Author: Blake J. Harris
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062455982
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 466
Get Book
Book Description
The dramatic, larger-than-life true story behind the founding of Oculus and its quest for virtual reality, by the bestselling author of Console Wars. Drawing on over a hundred interviews with the key players driving this revolution, The History of the Future weaves together a rich, cinematic narrative that captures the breakthroughs, breakdowns and human drama of trying to change the world. The result is a super accessible and supremely entertaining look at the birth of a game-changing new industry. From iconic books like Neuromancer to blockbuster films like The Matrix, virtual reality has long been hailed as the ultimate technology. But outside of a few research labs and military training facilities, this tantalizing vision of the future was nothing but science fiction. Until 2012, when Oculus founder Palmer Luckey—then just a rebellious teenage dreamer living alone in a camper trailer—invents a device that has the potential to change everything. With the help of a videogame legend, a serial entrepreneur and many other colorful characters, Luckey’s scrappy startup kickstarts a revolution and sets out to bring VR to the masses. As with most underdog stories, things don’t quite go according to plan. But what happens next turns out to be the ultimate entrepreneurial journey: a tale of battles won and lost, lessons learned and neverending twists and turns—including an unlikely multi-billion-dollar acquisition by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, which shakes up the landscape in Silicon Valley and gives Oculus the chance to forever change our reality. Drawing on over a hundred interviews with the key players driving this revolution, The History of the Future weaves together a rich, cinematic narrative that captures the breakthroughs, breakdowns and human drama of trying to change the world. The result is a super accessible and supremely entertaining look at the birth of a game-changing new industry.
Author: Jonathon Keats
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019933823X
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 217
Get Book
Book Description
A self-professed "comprehensive anticipatory design scientist," the inventor Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was undoubtedly a visionary and his creations often bordered on the realm of science fiction. You Belong to the Universe documents Fuller's six-decade quest to "make the world work for one hundred percent of humanity." Critic and experimental philosopher Jonathon Keats sets out to revive Fuller's unconventional practice of comprehensive anticipatory design, placing Fuller's philosophy in a modern context and dispelling much of the mythology surrounding Fuller's life. Keats argues that Fuller's life and ideas, namely doing "the most with the least," are now more relevant than ever as humanity struggles to meet the demands of an exploding world population with finite resources.
Author: Oona Strathern
Publisher: Constable
ISBN: 9781845292188
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 340
Get Book
Book Description
'If you do not think about the future, you cannot have one.' John Galsworthy Predicting the future is a notoriously precarious, profitable and even dangerous business. This book takes a look at the most interesting, important and influential futurists over the years; from Delphi's virgin visionaries, to pop futurists, science fiction writers, trend gurus and evolutionary experts. It provides a chronological history of the future, looking at the predictions that have shaped our world - Leonardo's flying machines; Darwin's evolutionary theory; Mendeleyev's periodic table; Marx's political futurism; Orwell's Big Brother; von Neumann's game theory that nearly led to World War Three; Buckminster Fuller and Corbusier's visions of social change through architecture. Prediction has become an integral part of business - Shell used scenario planning against oil shocks in the seventies, Nokia has a 'foresight' department, even the government of Lichtenstein has a shiny new futures department. But how do these people think, where do they get their ideas and what influence do they really have over our minds, businesses and politics?As well as the history of this influential, mysterious discipline this book also gives an insider's view of the workings of future prediction today. Ultimately, we must ask whether we can 'make' the future, or does the future make us?
Author: Sarah Machajewski
Publisher: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc
ISBN: 1508160562
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 34
Get Book
Book Description
Known for being the founder leader of SpaceX and many other enterprises, Elon Musk has been breaking the mold from a young age. Readers will learn many fascinating facts about this entrepreneur, engineer, and innovator, who has been working on such projects as reducing global warming, colonizing Mars, and developing technology for self-driving. An in-depth timeline and full-color photographs will spark readers' interest in the progression of Musk's trendsetting life.
Author: Lloyd Sieden
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 9780738203799
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 530
Get Book
Book Description
Buckminster Fuller, the brilliant and eccentric futurist philosopher best known as the inventor of the Geodesic Dome, was one of the most creative contributors to innovative thought and technology in the twentieth century. Incomparable designer, engineer, and architect, he proved that a lone genius, through sheer initiative, can have an astounding impact on the world. In this inspiring account of Fuller's life and legacy, Lloyd Steven Sieden brings new light to Fuller's belief system and recognizes his many contributions to humanity.
Author: B. Alexandra Szerlip
Publisher: Melville House
ISBN: 1612195628
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 417
Get Book
Book Description
Before there was Steve Jobs, there was Norman Bel Geddes. A ninth-grade dropout who found himself at the center of the worlds of industry, advertising, theater, and even gaming, Bel Geddes designed everything from the first all-weather stadium, to Manhattan's most exclusive nightclub, to Futurama, the prescient 1939 exhibit that envisioned how America would look in the not-too-distant 60s. In The Man Who Designed the Future, B. Alexandra Szerlip reveals precisely how central Bel Geddes was to the history of American innovation. He presided over a moment in which theater became immersive, function merged with form, and people became consumers. A polymath with humble Midwestern origins, Bel Geddes’ visionary career would launch him into social circles with the Algonquin roundtable members, stars of stage and screen, and titans of industry. Light on its feet but absolutely authoritative, this first major biography is a must for anyone who wants to know how America came to look the way it did.
Author: David Jacques Gerber
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300123507
Category : Businessmen
Languages : en
Pages : 408
Get Book
Book Description
The extraordinary life and career of the iconic twentieth-century inventor, technologist, and business magnate H. Joseph Gerber is described in a fascinating biography written by his son, David, based on unique access to unpublished sources. A Holocaust survivor whose early experiences shaped his ethos of invention, Gerber pioneered important developments in engineering, electronics, printing, apparel, aerospace, and numerous other areas, playing an essential role in the transformation of American industry. Gerber's story is remarkable and inspiring, and his method, redolent of Edison's and Sperry's, holds a key to a restored national economy and American creative vitality in the twenty-first century.
Author: Peter H. Diamandis
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 145161683X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 432
Get Book
Book Description
The authors document how four forces--exponential technologies, the DIY innovator, the Technophilanthropist, and the Rising Billion--are conspiring to solve our biggest problems. "Abundance" establishes hard targets for change and lays out a strategic roadmap for governments, industry and entrepreneurs, giving us plenty of reason for optimism.
Author: Saul Griffith
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262046237
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 285
Get Book
Book Description
An optimistic--but realistic and feasible--action plan for fighting climate change while creating new jobs and a healthier environment: electrify everything. Climate change is a planetary emergency. We have to do something now—but what? Saul Griffith has a plan. In Electrify, Griffith lays out a detailed blueprint—optimistic but feasible—for fighting climate change while creating millions of new jobs and a healthier environment. Griffith’s plan can be summed up simply: electrify everything. He explains exactly what it would take to transform our infrastructure, update our grid, and adapt our households to make this possible. Billionaires may contemplate escaping our worn-out planet on a private rocket ship to Mars, but the rest of us, Griffith says, will stay and fight for the future. Griffith, an engineer and inventor, calls for grid neutrality, ensuring that households, businesses, and utilities operate as equals; we will have to rewrite regulations that were created for a fossil-fueled world, mobilize industry as we did in World War II, and offer low-interest “climate loans.” Griffith’s plan doesn’t rely on big, not-yet-invented innovations, but on thousands of little inventions and cost reductions. We can still have our cars and our houses—but the cars will be electric and solar panels will cover our roofs. For a world trying to bounce back from a pandemic and economic crisis, there is no other project that would create as many jobs—up to twenty-five million, according to one economic analysis. Is this politically possible? We can change politics along with everything else.
