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 George F. Botjer's examination of the creator of the telegraph is based on previously unpublished archival sources.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.
"Contextualizes and analyzes the key energy transitions in U.S. history and the central importance of energy production and consumption on the American environment and in American culture and politics"--
In this brilliantly conceived and written biography, Pulitzer Prize–winning Kenneth Silverman gives us the long and amazing life of the man eulogized by the New York Herald in 1872 as “perhaps the most illustrious American of his age.” Silverman presents Samuel Morse in all his complexity. There is the gifted and prolific painter (more than three hundred portraits and larger historical canvases) and pioneer photographer, who gave the first lectures on art in America, became the first Professor of Fine Arts at an American college (New York University), and founded the National Academy of Design. There is the republican idealist, prominent in antebellum politics, who ran for Congress and for mayor of New York. But most important, there is the inventor of the American electromagnetic telegraph, which earned Morse the name Lightning Man and brought him the fame he sought. In these pages, we witness the evolution of the great invention from its inception as an idea to its introduction to the world—an event that astonished Morse’s contemporaries and was considered the supreme expression of the country’s inventive genius. We see how it transformed commerce, journalism, transportation, military affairs, diplomacy, and the very shape of daily life, ushering in the modern era of communication. But we discover as well that Morse viewed his existence as accursed rather than illustrious, his every achievement seeming to end in loss and defeat: his most ambitious canvases went unsold; his beloved republic imploded into civil war, making it unlivable for him; and the commercial success of the telegraph engulfed him in lawsuits challenging the originality and ownership of his invention. Lightning Man is the first biography of Samuel F. B. Morse in sixty years. It is a revelation of the life of a fascinating and profoundly troubled American genius.
In this two-volume work, writing for a general audience, Dr Michael Gurvitch proposes a unifying concept of electronics which combines the history of electronics with the science of evolution. Drawing on his long experience in scientific development, Gurvitch illuminates electronics from the inside using the point of view of a practicing scientist. What is elusive and often overlooked becomes palpable, engaging and even humorous with the author's tireless and methodical exposition of fundamental scientific roots from which electronics grew and continues to grow.This set contains both volumes of Brave New e-World, presenting the historical review of electronics from the middle of the 18th century to the present day. From the telegraph to the quantum computer and superconductors, Gurvitch combines personal recollections with scientific knowledge to advance the final thesis: the representation of a new non-biological evolution in electronics. This is all done in an intellectually engaging way: spiced by historical anecdotes, warmed by Gurvitch's enthusiastic love for science, and completed with the full participation of the reader. The concluding argument on electronic evolution is alarming, but it might prove to be a necessary concern in the continual development of electronic technologies.
Describe the invention of Samuel Morse in this book for fifth graders. How did the telegraph help lead the economic growth in the Northeast states? What pushed Morse to create this invention and how was it received in the mid-1800s? Read about the history of the invention and the inventor, too. Grab a copy of this book today.
