Technology Biography

Barely 50 years ago a computer was a gargantuan, vastly expensive thing that only a handful of scientists had ever seen. The world's brightest engineers were stymied in their quest to make these machines small and affordable until the solution finally came from two ingenious young Americans. Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce hit upon the stunning discovery that would make possible the silicon microchip, a work that would ultimately earn Kilby the Nobel Prize for physics in 2000.

George Washington Carver wasn't just an inventor. He was also a botanist, a farmer, and a professor. Young listeners will discover how this teacher not only improved the way people farmed, but introduced the world to more than 300 uses for the peanut.

Nearly a hundred years after its publication, Kurt Gödel's famous proof that every mathematical system must contain propositions that are true - yet never provable - continues to unsettle mathematics, philosophy, and computer science. Yet unlike Einstein, with whom he formed a warm and abiding friendship, Gödel has long escaped all but the most casual scrutiny of his life.

A powerful defense of intellectual freedom told through the ordeals of contemporary scientists attacked for exploring controversial ideas, by a noted science historian and medical activist.

Sam Altman, jeune homme brillant et atypique, reçoit une éducation positive avant-gardiste. À douze ans, il rêve déjà de créer une intelligence artificielle capable de résoudre les plus grands défis de l'humanité. Le 30 novembre 2022, il lance ChatGPT. Ce chatbot fascine le monde entier par sa capacité étonnante à tenir des conversations quasi humaines. Derrière cette réussite, un parcours hors norme. De son premier Mac à la fondation d'OpenAI, Sam Altman se distingue par bien plus que son talent de codeur.

A lively exploration into the life of Charles Darwin, One Beetle Too Many recounts both Darwin’s childhood and his time on the Beagle as a naturalist. This adventurous tale explores Darwin’s discoveries in geology, paleontology, and animal anatomy that led to his famous theory of evolution.

Sound interesting? The author thinks so too! Listen to Bharat 2020 and learn about A.P.J. Abdul Kalam's plan for how India can be included in the most powerful and prosperous five nations of the world in the next 20 years.

As Carl Sagan did for astronomy and Brian Green did for cosmology, Walter Lewin takes listeners on a marvelous journey in For the Love of Physics, opening our eyes as never before to the amazing beauty and power with which physics can reveal the hidden workings of the world all around us. "I introduce people to their own world," writes Lewin, "the world they live in and are familiar with but don't approach like a physicist - yet."

When Orville Wright (1871-1948) and his brother Wilbur set out to solve the problem of flight, they recognized that success would come with careful observation, perseverance, and ingenuity. From experiments in their Dayton, Ohio, bicycle shop to test flights over the beaches of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the amateur aviation enthusiasts risked their lives and worked tirelessly to solve the problems that had stumped the world's best scientists.

Explore the life and achievements of Henry Ford.

Having flown an astonishing 400 different aircraft, as a licensed Category 1 test pilot and flight test instructor for both airplanes and helicopters, Chris Taylor is arguably one of the best qualified and widely experienced test pilots working today anywhere in the world. After obtaining his private pilot’s license at the age of 17, Chris began his service flying career with the Royal Navy. He flew Wasp and Lynx helicopters from warships around the world under all kinds of circumstances.

Through family interviews, diaries, letters, and workbooks that had been sealed for over 60 years, Barbara Goldsmith reveals the Marie Curie behind the myth - an all-too-human woman struggling to balance a spectacular scientific career, a demanding family, the prejudice of society, and her own passionate nature. Obsessive Genius is a dazzling portrait of Curie, her amazing scientific success, and the price she paid for fame.

Nine million Americans are touched by aneurysms during their lifetimes. This is one story of love. Brainstorm is the candid and powerful memoir of the author's harrowing experience of an aneurysm and his road to recovery. It is a journey of love and devotion and a clash of medical beliefs and countercultures.

This book restores the name of Felix Le Dantec—a scientist, philosopher, and heretic of his age—to the living current of thought. At the dawn of the twentieth century, he dared to proclaim that life is not a riddle imposed by spirit upon matter, but that matter itself is spirit—learning, feeling, and recognizing itself through the processes of biology. He saw the organism not as a mechanism steered by circumstance, but as a meaning-making machine: life as an act of self-comprehension, matter awakening to its own awareness.

When molecular biologist Becky McClain raised urgent alarms about biosafety lapses at her biotech lab at Pfizer, she expected concern—not retaliation. Instead, her warnings about dangerous, genetically engineered viruses that were handled without following standard safety protocols were met with hostility, intimidation, and ultimately, devastating illness after a workplace exposure changed her life forever.

Die große Albert-Einstein-Biografie für unsere Zeit, von Bestsellerautor Walter Isaacson ("Steve Jobs", "Elon Musk") Walter Isaacson, der schon in seinem Bestseller über Steve Jobs dem Zusammenhang von Kreativität und Freiheit nachspürte, arbeitet in seiner umfassenden Biografie Albert Einsteins überzeugend heraus, wie dessen geniale wissenschaftliche Einbildungskraft der rebellischen Natur seiner Persönlichkeit entsprang. Er erkundet, wie ein "Angestellter dritter Klasse" beim Schweizer Patentamt, ein mit den Widrigkeiten des Lebens kämpfender Vater und Ehemann, dem eine Promotion versagt blieb, überlieferte Wahrheiten hinterfragte.

From a Cowboy to a World-Renowned Inventor tells the remarkable journey of a man defined by transformation, perseverance, and unwavering integrity. Born on a modest country homestead, he learned the value of hard work and forged a deep connection with nature. After an honorable military discharge, his life took an unexpected turn when he pursued higher education in forestry and botany—earning a Bachelor of Science. While college broadened his horizons, it also stirred deep frustration and anger that would shape his path.

How did the world’s greatest systems thinkers handled crises, invented revolutionary ideas, and solved complex problems? How did the field of systems thinking develop? Who were the pioneers in the field? Learn about the answers in Lessons from Systems Thinkers, from Norbert Wiener’s pioneering contribution on positive and negative feedback to Warren McCulloch’s research on feedback mechanisms in neurology, from Gregory Bateson’s double bind and how it affects family relationships to Margaret Mead’s systems approach to cultural anthropology.

Einstein and the Quantum reveals for the first time the full significance of Albert Einstein's contributions to quantum theory. Einstein famously rejected quantum mechanics, observing that God does not play dice. But, in fact, he thought more about the nature of atoms, molecules, and the emission and absorption of light - the core of what we now know as quantum theory - than he did about relativity.

Santiago Ramon y Cajal is likely the most important figure in the history of biology you've never heard of. Along with Darwin and Pasteur, he ranks among the most brilliant and original biologists of the nineteenth century, and his discoveries have done for our understanding of the human brain what the work of Galileo and Sir Isaac Newton did for our conception of the physical universe. Benjamin Ehrlich's The Brain in Search of Itself is the first major biography in English of this figure, whose scientific odyssey mirrored the rocky journey of his beloved homeland of Spain.