Showing results for "The Invention of Modern Science" 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.

In 24 lectures that let you see the world through the eyes of the Enlightenment's greatest writers, follow the origin of new ways of thinking-ideas we today take for granted but are startlingly recent-about the individual and society. You'll discover how these notions emerged in an era of transition from a world dominated by classical thought, institutional religion, and the aristocracy to one that was increasingly secular, scientific, skeptical, and middle class.

In this fascinating 36-lecture exploration of scientific growth filled with ideas, anecdotes, and insights. You'll see how 20th-century scientists have built on crucial 19th-century concepts such as energy, natural selection, atoms, fields, and waves to assemble a body of knowledge to stun even the most farsighted scientific thinkers of that not-too-distant past.

Choose one: (A) Science gives us objective knowledge of an independently existing reality.... or (B) Scientific knowledge is always provisional and tells us nothing that is universal, necessary, or certain about the world.Made your choice? Welcome to the science wars. This long-running battle over the status of scientific knowledge began in ancient Greece, raged furiously among scientists, social scientists, and humanists during the 1990s, and has reemerged in today's conflict between science and religion over issues like evolution.

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.

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...

In medicine, machines can be used to take detailed pictures of bones and even to save people’s lives. Listen to learn about the marvelous machines of modern medicine, like the defibrillator, the x-ray machine, and more!

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...

Why are there restaurants? Why would anybody consider eating alongside perfect strangers in a loud and crowded room to be an enjoyable pastime? To find the answer, Rebecca Spang takes us back to France in the eighteenth century, when a restaurant was not a place to eat but a quasi-medicinal bouillon not unlike the bone broths of today.

Technology rules us as much as laws do. It shapes the legal, social, and ethical environments in which we act. Every time we cross a street, drive a car, or go to the doctor, we submit to the silent power of technology. Yet, much of the time, the influence of technology on our lives goes unchallenged by citizens and our elected representatives. Our embrace of novel technological pathways, Sheila Jasanoff shows, leads to a complex interplay among technology, ethics, and human rights.