Reluctant Genius

Reluctant Genius PDF Author: Charlotte Gray
Publisher: Skyhorse
ISBN: 1628721405
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 582

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Book Description
The popular image of Alexander Graham Bell is that of an elderly American patriarch, memorable only for his paunch, his Santa Claus beard, and the invention of the telephone. In this magisterial reassessment based on thorough new research, acclaimed biographer Charlotte Gray reveals Bell’s wide-ranging passion for invention and delves into the private life that supported his genius. The child of a speech therapist and a deaf mother, and possessed of superbly acute hearing, Bell developed an early interest in sound. His understanding of how sound waves might relate to electrical waves enabled him to invent the “talking telegraph” be- fore his rivals, even as he undertook a tempestuous courtship of the woman who would become his wife and mainstay. In an intensely competitive age, Bell seemed to shun fame and fortune. Yet many of his innovations—electric heating, using light to transmit sound, electronic mail, composting toilets, the artificial lung—were far ahead of their time. His pioneering ideas about sound, flight, genetics, and even the engineering of complex structures such as stadium roofs still resonate today. This is an essential portrait of an American giant whose innovations revolutionized the modern world.

Reluctant Genius

Reluctant Genius PDF Author: Charlotte Gray
Publisher: Skyhorse
ISBN: 1628721405
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 582

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Book Description
The popular image of Alexander Graham Bell is that of an elderly American patriarch, memorable only for his paunch, his Santa Claus beard, and the invention of the telephone. In this magisterial reassessment based on thorough new research, acclaimed biographer Charlotte Gray reveals Bell’s wide-ranging passion for invention and delves into the private life that supported his genius. The child of a speech therapist and a deaf mother, and possessed of superbly acute hearing, Bell developed an early interest in sound. His understanding of how sound waves might relate to electrical waves enabled him to invent the “talking telegraph” be- fore his rivals, even as he undertook a tempestuous courtship of the woman who would become his wife and mainstay. In an intensely competitive age, Bell seemed to shun fame and fortune. Yet many of his innovations—electric heating, using light to transmit sound, electronic mail, composting toilets, the artificial lung—were far ahead of their time. His pioneering ideas about sound, flight, genetics, and even the engineering of complex structures such as stadium roofs still resonate today. This is an essential portrait of an American giant whose innovations revolutionized the modern world.

Reluctant Genius

Reluctant Genius PDF Author: Charlotte Gray
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
ISBN: 1443403164
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
Impeccably researched, and written with Charlotte Gray’s unerring eye for personal and historical detail, Reluctant Genius tells the story of a man very different from his public image. Most of us think of Alexander Graham Bell as a white-bearded sage, but the young Alec Bell was a passionate and wild-eyed genius, a man given to fits of brilliance and melancholy. His technologies for photophones, tetrahedrals, flying machines and hydrodomes laid the groundwork for future achievement. And he adored his wife, Mabel, a beautiful, deaf young woman from a blueblood Boston family. Gray goes where no other writer has gone, delving deeply into Bell’s personality and into his intense relationship with Mabel, whose background and temperament were a startling contrast to his own. Reluctant Genius takes us on an intimate journey into the golden age of invention and the vibrant life of a man whose work shaped our world.

C. S. Lewis -- A Life

C. S. Lewis -- A Life PDF Author: Alister McGrath
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
ISBN: 1414382529
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 450

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Book Description
ECPA 2014 Christian Book Award Winner (Non-Fiction)! Fifty years after his death, C. S. Lewis continues to inspire and fascinate millions. His legacy remains varied and vast. He was a towering intellectual figure, a popular fiction author who inspired a global movie franchise around the world of Narnia, and an atheist-turned-Christian thinker. In C.S. Lewis—A Life, Alister McGrath, prolific author and respected professor at King’s College of London, paints a definitive portrait of the life of C. S. Lewis. After thoroughly examining recently published Lewis correspondence, Alister challenges some of the previously held beliefs about the exact timing of Lewis’s shift from atheism to theism and then to Christianity. He paints a portrait of an eccentric thinker who became an inspiring, though reluctant, prophet for our times. You won’t want to miss this fascinating portrait of a creative genius who inspired generations.

Reluctant Genius

Reluctant Genius PDF Author: Henry Slesar
Publisher: eStar Books
ISBN: 1612102379
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 9

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Book Description
It is said that Life crawled up from the slime of the sea-bottoms and became Man because of inherent greatness bred into him before the dawn of time. But perhaps this urge was not as formless as we think.

Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander Graham Bell PDF Author: Edwin S. Grosvenor
Publisher: New Word City
ISBN: 1612309569
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
". . . rarely have inventor and invention been better served than in this book." – New York Times Book Review Here, Edwin Grosvenor, American Heritage's publisher and Bell's great-grandson, tells the dramatic story of the race to invent the telephone and how Bell's patent for it would become the most valuable ever issued. He also writes of Bell's other extraordinary inventions: the first transmission of sound over light waves, metal detector, first practical phonograph, and early airplanes, including the first to fly in Canada. And he examines Bell's humanitarian efforts, including support for women's suffrage, civil rights, and speeches about what he warned would be a "greenhouse effect" of pollution causing global warming.

The Accidental Genius of Weasel High

The Accidental Genius of Weasel High PDF Author: Rick Detorie
Publisher: Egmont USA
ISBN: 1606842447
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
A book for the Wimpy Kid who has grown into a Wimpy Teen Larkin Pace desperately wants a new camcorder. How else is he going to become the next great filmmaker? But his dad won’t give him any money, his sister is determined to make his life miserable, and his nemesis Dalton Cooke is trying to steal his girlfriend. Now this height-challenged aspiring director must chronicle his wacky life for a freshman English assignment.

Millicent Min, Girl Genius (The Millicent Min Trilogy, Book 1)

Millicent Min, Girl Genius (The Millicent Min Trilogy, Book 1) PDF Author: Lisa Yee
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
ISBN: 054588022X
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
Who would have thought being smart could be so hard (and funny)? Millicent Min is having a bad summer. Her fellow high school students hate her for setting the curve. Her fellow 11-year-olds hate her for going to high school. And her mother has arranged for her to tutor Stanford Wong, the poster boy for Chinese geekdom. But then Millie meets Emily. Emily doesn't know Millicent's IQ score. She actually thinks Millie is cool. And if Millie can hide her awards, ignore her grandmother's advice, swear her parents to silence, blackmail Stanford, and keep all her lies straight, she just might make her first friend.What's it going to take? Sheer genius.

WARP Book 1: The Reluctant Assassin

WARP Book 1: The Reluctant Assassin PDF Author: Eoin Colfer
Publisher: Disney Electronic Content
ISBN: 1423181158
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
Riley, a teen orphan boy living in Victorian London, has had the misfortune of being apprenticed to Albert Garrick, an illusionist who has fallen on difficult times and now uses his unique conjuring skills to gain access to victims' dwellings. On one such escapade, Garrick brings his reluctant apprentice along and urges him to commit his first killing. Riley is saved from having to commit the grisly act when the intended victim turns out to be a scientist from the future, part of the FBI's Witness Anonymous Relocation Program (WARP) Riley is unwittingly transported via wormhole to modern day London, followed closely by Garrick. In modern London, Riley is helped by Chevron Savano, a nineteen-year-old FBI agent sent to London as punishment after a disastrous undercover, anti-terrorist operation in Los Angeles. Together Riley and Chevie must evade Garrick, who has been fundamentally altered by his trip through the wormhole. Garrick is now not only evil, but he also possesses all of the scientist's knowledge. He is determined to track Riley down and use the timekey in Chevie's possession to make his way back to Victorian London where he can literally change the world.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

The Reluctant Fundamentalist PDF Author: Mohsin Hamid
Publisher: Anchor Canada
ISBN: 0307373355
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 155

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Book Description
From the author of the award-winning Moth Smoke comes a perspective on love, prejudice, and the war on terror that has never been seen in North American literature. At a café table in Lahore, a bearded Pakistani man converses with a suspicious, and possibly armed, American stranger. As dusk deepens to night, he begins the tale that has brought them to this fateful meeting. . . Changez is living an immigrant’s dream of America. At the top of his class at Princeton, he is snapped up by Underwood Samson, an elite firm that specializes in the “valuation” of companies ripe for acquisition. He thrives on the energy of New York and the intensity of his work, and his infatuation with regal Erica promises entrée into Manhattan society at the same exalted level once occupied by his own family back in Lahore. For a time, it seems as though nothing will stand in the way of Changez’s meteoric rise to personal and professional success. But in the wake of September 11, he finds his position in his adopted city suddenly overturned, and his budding relationship with Erica eclipsed by the reawakened ghosts of her past. And Changez’s own identity is in seismic shift as well, unearthing allegiances more fundamental than money, power, and perhaps even love. Elegant and compelling, Mohsin Hamid’s second novel is a devastating exploration of our divided and yet ultimately indivisible world. “Excuse me, sir, but may I be of assistance? Ah, I see I have alarmed you. Do not be frightened by my beard: I am a lover of America. I noticed that you were looking for something; more than looking, in fact you seemed to be on a mission, and since I am both a native of this city and a speaker of your language, I thought I might offer you my services as a bridge.” —from The Reluctant Fundamentalist

The Creative Brain

The Creative Brain PDF Author: Nancy C. Andreasen
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0452287812
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Shakespeare’s tragic plays, Mozart’s sublime symphonies, Einstein’s revolutionary theories—how did these geniuses create such magnificent and highly original works? Were their brains different from those of ordinary people? Using modern neuroscience together with first-person accounts of creative breakthroughs from artists and scientists such as Mozart, Henri Poincaré, and Neil Simon, The Creative Brain illuminates where extraordinary creativity comes from. Acclaimed brain scientist Nancy Andreasen proposes that, due to enriched connections between certain areas of the brain, geniuses are able to tap into the unconscious mind in ways that most of us can’t. She also explores the link between creativity and mental illness, and she shows how all of us can enhance our creative potential through mental exercises. Clearly and accessibly written, The Creative Brain is a fascinating investigation into the mystery of human genius.