Technology Biography

This audiobook tells the story of how Alexander Graham Bell came up with the telephone, and how his invention changed the way people communicate.

A biography examining the life of Benjamin Franklin and his leadership as a statesman, scientist, inventor, and printer.

Perhaps the greatest physicist of the second half of the 20th century, Richard Feynman changed the way we think about quantum mechanics, the most perplexing of all physical theories. Here Lawrence M. Krauss, himself a theoretical physicist and best-selling author, offers a unique scientific biography: a rollicking narrative coupled with clear and novel expositions of science at the limits.

Bridging the gap between tech mania and the experience of being inside the human body, Dawn of the New Everything is a look at what it means to be human at a moment of unprecedented technological possibility. Through a fascinating look back over his life in technology, Jaron Lanier, an interdisciplinary scientist and father of the term virtual reality, exposes VR's ability to illuminate and amplify our understanding of our species and gives listeners a new perspective on how the brain and body connect to the world.

Far Side of the Moon is the untold, fully authorized story of the lives of Frank and Susan Borman. One was a famous astronaut - an instrumental part of the Apollo space program - but the other was just as much a warrior. This real-life love story is far from a fairy tale. Life as a military wife was beyond demanding, but Susan always rose to the occasion. When Frank joined NASA and was selected to command the first mission to orbit the moon, Susan’s well-hidden depression and alcoholism finally came to light.

From Tesla's childhood in Yugoslavia to his death in New York in the 1940s, Cheney paints a compelling human portrait and chronicles a lifetime of discoveries that radically altered - and continue to alter - the world in which we live. Tesla: Man Out of Time is an in-depth look at the seminal accomplishments of a scientific wizard and a thoughtful examination of the obsessions and eccentricities of the man behind the science.

The remarkable woman at heart of the smash New York Times best seller and Oscar-winning film Hidden Figures tells the full story of her life, including what it took to work at NASA, help land the first man on the moon, and live through a century of turmoil and change.

As a female Jewish physicist in Berlin during the early 20th century, Lise Meitner had to fight for an education, a job, and equal treatment in her field, like having her name listed on her own research papers. Meitner made groundbreaking strides in the study of radiation, but when Hitler came to power in Germany, she suddenly had to face not only sexism, but also life-threatening anti-Semitism as well. Nevertheless, she persevered and one day made a discovery that rocked the world: the splitting of the atom.

The Apollo lunar missions of the 1960s and 1970s have been called the last optimistic acts of the 20th century. Twelve astronauts made this greatest of all journeys and were indelibly marked by it, for better or for worse. Journalist Andrew Smith tracks down the nine surviving members of this elite group to find their answers to the question "Where do you go after you've been to the Moon?"

Elon Musk is undeniably a business titan. He controls massive companies like Tesla and SpaceX, and has cemented himself in history forever - but how much do you really know about the man behind it all? Inside this detailed account of Elon Musk’s life and career, you’ll learn about his childhood and schooling in South Africa, his humble beginnings on the American continent, and his first endeavors into business.

Stuart Jamieson's story is the story of four decades of advances in heart surgery. Taut, elegantly crafted, and ever-attentive to the patients for whom he was the last best chance, Close to the Sun is an adventurous, riveting account based on the experience of over 40,000 heart surgeries, where everything was on the line every moment in the O.R.

Explore the stories of more than 85 of the world's most inspirational and influential scientists with this innovative and bold book of biographies. From mathematicians to meteorologists, geologists to geneticists, each scientist is presented through a combination of stimulating words. Combining elements of biography, history, and analysis, Scientists Who Changed History explains the groundbreaking contributions made by these revolutionary men and women in a clear and informative way.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, long-suppressed information has emerged on Heisenberg’s role in the Nazi atomic bomb project. In Beyond Uncertainty, Cassidy interprets this and other previously unknown material within the context of his vast research and tackles the vexing questions of a scientist’s personal responsibility and guilt when serving an abhorrent military regime.

In the spring of 1940, the aspiring but unknown writer Albert Camus and budding scientist Jacques Monod were quietly pursuing ordinary, separate lives in Paris. After the German invasion and occupation of France, each joined the Resistance to help liberate the country from the Nazis and ascended to prominent, dangerous roles. After the war and through twists of circumstance, they became friends, and through their passionate determination and rare talent they emerged as leading voices of modern literature and biology, each receiving the Nobel Prize in their respective fields.

Most people know that Gregor Mendel, the Moravian monk who patiently grew his peas in a monastery garden, shaped our understanding of inheritance. But people might not know that Mendel's work was ignored in his own lifetime, even though it contained answers to the most pressing questions raised by Charles Darwin's revolutionary book, On Origrin of the Species, published only a few years earlier. Mendel's single chance of recognition failed utterly, and he died a lonely and disappointed man.

In 1942, a team at the University of Chicago achieved what no one had before: a nuclear chain reaction. At the forefront of this breakthrough stood Enrico Fermi. Straddling the ages of classical physics and quantum mechanics, equally at ease with theory and experiment, Fermi truly was the last man who knew everything - at least about physics. But he was also a complex figure who was a part of both the Italian Fascist Party and the Manhattan Project, and a less-than-ideal father and husband who nevertheless remained one of history's greatest mentors.

Based on the newly released personal letters of Albert Einstein, Walter Isaacson explores how an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk, a struggling father in a difficult marriage who couldn't get a teaching job or a doctorate, became the mind reader of the creator of the cosmos, the locksmith of the mysteries of the atom and the universe. His success came from questioning conventional wisdom and marveling at mysteries that struck others as mundane.

Explore the life and achievements of Rachel Carson, a ground-breaking scientist who worked to protect the Earth.

As co-founder and CEO of Dark Watch, author Noel Thomas has led United States law enforcement and the judicial system into the new battleground, where high-tech data analysis is changing how criminals are caught and prosecuted. Dark Traffic arrives on a new wave of media attention and actions at the federal, state, and local government levels, and informs listeners how they can play a role in identifying and helping stop trafficking that occurs in their own neighborhood. Noel’s story of how he became aware of the issue is proof.

Jonathan Franzen’s best seller Freedom was the most-discussed novel of 2010, an ambitious and searching engagement with life in America in the 21st century. The New York Times Book Review proclaimed it “a masterpiece of American fiction.” Now a new collection of Franzen’s non-fiction brings fresh evidence of that moral intelligence, confirming his status not only as a great American novelist but also as a keen observer, social critic and self-investigator.