Showing results for "Invention Mysteries" in All Categories

The world is never finished catching up with Vaclav Smil. In his latest and perhaps most digestible book, Invention and Innovation, the prolific author—a favorite of Bill Gates—pens an insightful and fact-filled jaunt through the history of human invention. Impatient with the hype that so often accompanies innovation, Smil offers in this book a clear-eyed corrective to the overpromises that accompany everything from new cures for diseases to AI.

Through vivid stories studded with insights, award-winning author Tamim Ansary tells the story of how humans invented history, from the Stone Age to the Virtual Age. Fifty thousand years ago, we roamed the world as countless autonomous bands of hunter-gatherers, each one telling itself a story...

Now, you can learn the remarkable stories surrounding monumental inventions - and how consequential these inventions were to history. Taught by Professor W. Bernard Carlson of the University of Virginia, who is an expert on the role of innovation in history, these 36 enlightening lectures give you a broad survey of material history, from the ancient pottery wheel to the Internet and social media. Along with recounting the famous inventions you might expect, this course explores a number of surprising innovations, including beer, pagodas, and the operating room.

Artificial Intelligence helps choose what books you buy, what movies you see, and even who you date. It puts the "smart" in your smartphone and soon it will drive your car. It makes most of the trades on Wall Street, and controls vital energy, water, and transportation infrastructure. But Artificial Intelligence can also threaten our existence. In as little as a decade, AI could match and then surpass human intelligence. Corporations and government agencies are pouring billions into achieving AI’s Holy Grail - human-level intelligence.

In the tradition of Why Nations Fail, this book solves one of the great puzzles of history: Why did the West become the most powerful civilization in the world? Western exceptionalism—the idea that European civilizations are freer, wealthier, and less violent—is a widespread and powerful...

Trenton Colman is exceptionally creative, with a knack for all things mechanical. But his talents are viewed with suspicion in Cove, a steam-powered city built inside a mountain. In Cove, creativity is a crime, and invention is a curse word.

The author of the acclaimed medieval mystery A Burnable Book once again brings fourteenth-century London alive in all its color and detail in this riveting thriller featuring medieval poet and fixer John Gower—a twisty tale rife with intrigue, danger mystery, and murder. Though he is one of...

Leo and Remi have saved the wacky, wonderful Whippet Hotel, but their adventures aren't over. Anything is possible on the field of wacky inventions: some are scary (like a genetically altered twelve-foot chicken); some are dangerous (like a pond full of electric eels); some are completely out of control; and somehow, Leo and Remi will take it all in stride.

Incredible True Stories for Curious Kids isn't just another fact book. It's a collection of surprising, real-life stories told through fun characters and dialogue that make kids forget they're actually learning.

A strange old theatre at the end of the pier is the setting for the next fantastic adventure full of magic and mayhem with unbeatable double act, Esme & Monty Pepper, and their madcap Uncle Potty… The Pepper twins, Esmé and Monty and their uncle Potty have been summoned to the Sea Spray...

Discover the extraordinary stories behind everyday things! Did you know that the ice cream sundae was invented because of a law forbidding the sale of ice cream on Sundays? Or that the first motorcycle was really just a tricycle with a motor? Would you believe that Mickey Mouse started out as...