The Age of Edison

The Age of Edison PDF Author: Ernest Freeberg
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143124447
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
A sweeping history of the electric light revolution and the birth of modern America The late nineteenth century was a period of explosive technological creativity, but more than any other invention, Thomas Edison’s incandescent light bulb marked the arrival of modernity, transforming its inventor into a mythic figure and avatar of an era. In The Age of Edison, award-winning author and historian Ernest Freeberg weaves a narrative that reaches from Coney Island and Broadway to the tiniest towns of rural America, tracing the progress of electric light through the reactions of everyone who saw it and capturing the wonder Edison’s invention inspired. It is a quintessentially American story of ingenuity, ambition, and possibility in which the greater forces of progress and change are made by one of our most humble and ubiquitous objects.

The Age of Edison

The Age of Edison PDF Author: Ernest Freeberg
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143124447
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
A sweeping history of the electric light revolution and the birth of modern America The late nineteenth century was a period of explosive technological creativity, but more than any other invention, Thomas Edison’s incandescent light bulb marked the arrival of modernity, transforming its inventor into a mythic figure and avatar of an era. In The Age of Edison, award-winning author and historian Ernest Freeberg weaves a narrative that reaches from Coney Island and Broadway to the tiniest towns of rural America, tracing the progress of electric light through the reactions of everyone who saw it and capturing the wonder Edison’s invention inspired. It is a quintessentially American story of ingenuity, ambition, and possibility in which the greater forces of progress and change are made by one of our most humble and ubiquitous objects.

Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison PDF Author: Linda Tagliaferro
Publisher: Twenty-First Century Books
ISBN: 9780822546894
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 146

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Book Description
A biography of Thomas Alva Edison, the inventor of the electric lighting system and the phonograph.

Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla PDF Author: Dr. Richard Gunderman
Publisher: 'The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc'
ISBN: 1499471157
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
As a scientist, inventor, and engineer, Nikola Tesla was devoted to discovery, registering over 700 patents in his lifetime. Today, he is mostly celebrated as the father of modern electricity, shaping technology that came after. Tesla’s fascinating life story is the focus of this accessible volume, which includes beautifully reproduced documents from Tesla’s personal archives. Readers will be especially interested in original diagrams and drawings of his ingenious machines, which—along with comprehensible explanations—will familiarize them with the essential curricular concepts of X-ray, radar, and electricity.

Samuel F. B. Morse and the Dawn of the Age of Electricity

Samuel F. B. Morse and the Dawn of the Age of Electricity PDF Author: George F. Botjer
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498501419
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 149

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Book Description
The Morse telegraph launched the electronic telecommunications industry and reduced the travel time of information from days, weeks and months to seconds and minutes. It was one of the most important breakthrough inventions of all time. George F. Botjer's examination of the creator of the telegraph is based on previously unpublished archival sources. It considers Samuel F. B. Morse, the creator of the first telegraph, and the ways in which place and time had an effect on the launch of his invention and his resulting fame, and how the invention affected the inventor himself.

The Electrical Age

The Electrical Age PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 912

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Book Description


The Electric Information Age Book

The Electric Information Age Book PDF Author: Jeffrey Schnapp
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
ISBN: 9781616890346
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The Electric Information Age Book explores the nine-year window of mass-market publishing in the sixties and seventies when formerly backstage players-designers, graphic artists, editors-stepped into the spotlight to produce a series of exceptional books. Aimed squarely at the young media-savvy consumers of the "Electronic Information Age," these small, inexpensive paperbacks aimed to bring the ideas of contemporary thinkers like Marshall McLuhan, R. Buckminster Fuller, Herman Kahn, and Carl Sagan to the masses. Graphic designers such as Quentin Fiore (The Medium Is the Massage, 1967) employed a variety of radical techniques-verbal visual collages and other typographic pyrotechnics-that were as important to the content as the text. The Electric Information Age Book is the first book-length history of this brief yet highly influential publishing phenomenon.

Energy and Civilization

Energy and Civilization PDF Author: Vaclav Smil
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262536161
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 564

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Book Description
A comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society throughout history, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel–driven civilization. "I wait for new Smil books the way some people wait for the next 'Star Wars' movie. In his latest book, Energy and Civilization: A History, he goes deep and broad to explain how innovations in humans' ability to turn energy into heat, light, and motion have been a driving force behind our cultural and economic progress over the past 10,000 years. —Bill Gates, Gates Notes, Best Books of the Year Energy is the only universal currency; it is necessary for getting anything done. The conversion of energy on Earth ranges from terra-forming forces of plate tectonics to cumulative erosive effects of raindrops. Life on Earth depends on the photosynthetic conversion of solar energy into plant biomass. Humans have come to rely on many more energy flows—ranging from fossil fuels to photovoltaic generation of electricity—for their civilized existence. In this monumental history, Vaclav Smil provides a comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel–driven civilization. Humans are the only species that can systematically harness energies outside their bodies, using the power of their intellect and an enormous variety of artifacts—from the simplest tools to internal combustion engines and nuclear reactors. The epochal transition to fossil fuels affected everything: agriculture, industry, transportation, weapons, communication, economics, urbanization, quality of life, politics, and the environment. Smil describes humanity's energy eras in panoramic and interdisciplinary fashion, offering readers a magisterial overview. This book is an extensively updated and expanded version of Smil's Energy in World History (1994). Smil has incorporated an enormous amount of new material, reflecting the dramatic developments in energy studies over the last two decades and his own research over that time.

Empires of Light

Empires of Light PDF Author: Jill Jonnes
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0375758844
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 466

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Book Description
The gripping history of electricity and how the fateful collision of Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and George Westinghouse left the world utterly transformed. In the final decades of the nineteenth century, three brilliant and visionary titans of America’s Gilded Age—Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and George Westinghouse—battled bitterly as each vied to create a vast and powerful electrical empire. In Empires of Light, historian Jill Jonnes portrays this extraordinary trio and their riveting and ruthless world of cutting-edge science, invention, intrigue, money, death, and hard-eyed Wall Street millionaires. At the heart of the story are Thomas Alva Edison, the nation’s most famous and folksy inventor, creator of the incandescent light bulb and mastermind of the world’s first direct current electrical light networks; the Serbian wizard of invention Nikola Tesla, elegant, highly eccentric, a dreamer who revolutionized the generation and delivery of electricity; and the charismatic George Westinghouse, Pittsburgh inventor and tough corporate entrepreneur, an industrial idealist who in the era of gaslight imagined a world powered by cheap and plentiful electricity and worked heart and soul to create it. Edison struggled to introduce his radical new direct current (DC) technology into the hurly-burly of New York City as Tesla and Westinghouse challenged his dominance with their alternating current (AC), thus setting the stage for one of the eeriest feuds in American corporate history, the War of the Electric Currents. The battlegrounds: Wall Street, the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, Niagara Falls, and, finally, the death chamber—Jonnes takes us on the tense walk down a prison hallway and into the sunlit room where William Kemmler, convicted ax murderer, became the first man to die in the electric chair.

Electrical Wizard

Electrical Wizard PDF Author: Elizabeth Rusch
Publisher: Candlewick Press
ISBN: 1536245852
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 42

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Book Description
“An engaging volume that will encourage both budding scientists and anyone intrigued by the creative process.” — Kirkus Reviews Here is the story of the ambitious young man who brought life-changing ideas to America, despite the obstructive efforts of his hero-turned-rival, Thomas Edison. From using alternating current to light up the Chicago World’s Fair to harnessing Niagara Falls to electrify New York City and beyond, Nikola Tesla was a revolutionary ahead of his time. Established biographer Elizabeth Rusch sheds light on this extraordinary figure, while fine artist Oliver Dominguez brings his life and inventions to vivid color. Back matter includes additional information about Tesla, scientific notes and explanations, source notes, a bibliography, and suggestions for further reading.

Networks of Power

Networks of Power PDF Author: Thomas Parke Hughes
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801846144
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 492

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Book Description
Awarded the Dexter Prize by the Society for the History of Technology, this book offers a comparative history of the evolution of modern electric power systems. It described large-scale technological change and demonstrates that technology cannot be understood unless placed in a cultural context.