Three lives, one epic story. Find out how Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison and Nicola Tesla changed the world we live in forever! Three men, three great minds and three completely different approaches to science. Find out how these men tamed the forces of science in order to share its power with the world. As their paths cross, a rivalry grows. The men who revolutionized the fields of light, sound and vision compete with each other to become the leading genius of the age.
Three lives, one epic story. Find out how Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison and Nicola Tesla changed the world we live in forever! Three men, three great minds and three completely different approaches to science. Find out how these inventors tamed the forces of science in order to share its power with the world. As their paths cross, a rivalry grows. The men who revolutionized the fields of light, sound and vision compete with each other to become the leading genius of the age.
Since the dawn of civilization, we have searched for answers to what makes life possible, and in the mid-twentieth century we found them through the persistent efforts of James Watson and Francis Crick. Although the groundwork for the discovery had already been laid out, it was Watson and Crick's derivation of the three-dimensional, double-helical model for the structure of DNA that solved the final piece of the puzzle and won them the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962. That is only a single moment of triumph, though, and the journey they took to get there was a long and arduous one. Find out how Crick and Watson beat their rivals to unlock the secrets of life itself as they unravelled the mystery behind DNA and changed not only science but the world we live in.
Tenzing Norgay was the son of poor Tibetan immigrants living in Nepal. He longed to see the world but was told he could aspire to be little more than a servant. Edmund Hillary was a humble beekeeper from New Zealand, who spent his youth dreaming of adventures he could never hope to experience. And Everest was the ultimate adventure. The mountain's peak is the highest point on Earth, stretching beyond the clouds. So dangerous and challenging, Everest had never been successfully climbed and many had died trying. In 1953, Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary joined a team of explorers determined to reach its top. Alone at the top of the world with their oxygen running low, they faced brutal elements and new dangers at every turn. And they were armed with little more than their courage, determination, and a belief in each other. But would that be enough to achieve the impossible, what no man had done before?
While we all know that large-scale industrialization began in the eighteenth century, the Industrial Revolution truly began in Germany with Johannes Gutenberg and his printing press. His innovation made it possible to mass-produce books, which spread literacy and knowledge all across Europe. It was in the eighteenth century, however, that manual labor started being replaced by what we today know as machines. First in Europe came Thomas Newcomen and James Watt and the steam engine. Then came John Kay and his flying shuttle, which led to the development of the textile industry. Then, in the United States, there was Robert Fulton and his steamboat, and Eli Whitney and his cotton gin. Finally, it was Henry Ford whose mass-produced vehicles made cars affordable to all. The Industrial Revolution continues to this day as formerly less developed countries, especially in Asia, have taken to rapid industrialization to improve their economy. Lexile Reading Level 800L.
AC/DC tells the little-known story of how Thomas Edison wrongly bet in the fierce war between supporters of alternating current and direct current. The savagery of this electrical battle can hardly be imagined today. The showdown between AC and DC began as a rather straightforward conflict between technical standards, a battle of competing methods to deliver essentially the same product, electricity. But the skirmish soon metastasized into something bigger and darker. In the AC/DC battle, the worst aspects of human nature somehow got caught up in the wires; a silent, deadly flow of arrogance, vanity, and cruelty. Following the path of least resistance, the war of currents soon settled around that most primal of human emotions: fear. AC/DC serves as an object lesson in bad business strategy and poor decision making. Edison's inability to see his mistake was a key factor in his loss of control over the ?operating system? for his future inventions?not to mention the company he founded, General Electric.
If you want to learn about one of history’s most fascinating minds and uncover some of his secrets of imagination—secrets that enabled him to invent machines light years ahead of his time and literally bring light to the world—then you want to read this book. Imagination amplifies and colors every other element of genius, and unlocks our potential for understanding and ability. It’s no coincidence that geniuses not only dare to dream of the impossible for their work, but do the same for their lives. They’re audacious enough to think that they’re not just ordinary players. Few stories better illustrate this better than the life of the father of the modern world, a man of legendary imaginative power and wonder: Nikola Tesla. In this book, you’ll be taken on a whirlwind journey through Tesla’s life and work, and not only learn about the successes and mistakes of one of history’s greatest inventors, but also how to look at the world in a different, more imaginative way. Read this book now and learn lessons from Nikola Tesla on why imagination is so vital to awakening your inner genius, and insights into the real “secret” to creativity, as explained by people like Jobs, Picasso, Dali, and Twain.
The gripping history of electricity and how the fateful collision of Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and George Westinghouse left the world utterly transformed. In the final decades of the nineteenth century, three brilliant and visionary titans of America’s Gilded Age—Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and George Westinghouse—battled bitterly as each vied to create a vast and powerful electrical empire. In Empires of Light, historian Jill Jonnes portrays this extraordinary trio and their riveting and ruthless world of cutting-edge science, invention, intrigue, money, death, and hard-eyed Wall Street millionaires. At the heart of the story are Thomas Alva Edison, the nation’s most famous and folksy inventor, creator of the incandescent light bulb and mastermind of the world’s first direct current electrical light networks; the Serbian wizard of invention Nikola Tesla, elegant, highly eccentric, a dreamer who revolutionized the generation and delivery of electricity; and the charismatic George Westinghouse, Pittsburgh inventor and tough corporate entrepreneur, an industrial idealist who in the era of gaslight imagined a world powered by cheap and plentiful electricity and worked heart and soul to create it. Edison struggled to introduce his radical new direct current (DC) technology into the hurly-burly of New York City as Tesla and Westinghouse challenged his dominance with their alternating current (AC), thus setting the stage for one of the eeriest feuds in American corporate history, the War of the Electric Currents. The battlegrounds: Wall Street, the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, Niagara Falls, and, finally, the death chamber—Jonnes takes us on the tense walk down a prison hallway and into the sunlit room where William Kemmler, convicted ax murderer, became the first man to die in the electric chair.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A world of invention and skulduggery, populated by the likes of Edison, Westinghouse, and Tesla.”—Erik Larson “A model of superior historical fiction . . . an exciting, sometimes astonishing story.”—The Washington Post From Graham Moore, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game and New York Times bestselling author of The Sherlockian, comes a thrilling novel—based on actual events—about the nature of genius, the cost of ambition, and the battle to electrify America. New York, 1888. Gas lamps still flicker in the city streets, but the miracle of electric light is in its infancy. The person who controls the means to turn night into day will make history—and a vast fortune. A young untested lawyer named Paul Cravath, fresh out of Columbia Law School, takes a case that seems impossible to win. Paul’s client, George Westinghouse, has been sued by Thomas Edison over a billion-dollar question: Who invented the light bulb and holds the right to power the country? The case affords Paul entry to the heady world of high society—the glittering parties in Gramercy Park mansions, and the more insidious dealings done behind closed doors. The task facing him is beyond daunting. Edison is a wily, dangerous opponent with vast resources at his disposal—private spies, newspapers in his pocket, and the backing of J. P. Morgan himself. Yet this unknown lawyer shares with his famous adversary a compulsion to win at all costs. How will he do it? In obsessive pursuit of victory, Paul crosses paths with Nikola Tesla, an eccentric, brilliant inventor who may hold the key to defeating Edison, and with Agnes Huntington, a beautiful opera singer who proves to be a flawless performer on stage and off. As Paul takes greater and greater risks, he’ll find that everyone in his path is playing their own game, and no one is quite who they seem. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER “A satisfying romp . . . Takes place against a backdrop rich with period detail . . . Works wonderfully as an entertainment . . . As it charges forward, the novel leaves no dot unconnected.”—Noah Hawley, The New York Times Book Review
Campfire Graphic Novels have published more than 70 titles since their introduction to North America in 2010; the line continues to grow at a steady pace, and the range of offerings is expanding. Campfire Graphic Novels feature gorgeous, sophisticated artwork and lush prodcution values. In the 15th Century, most astronomers agreed that the Earth was the centre of the universe. This idea dated back more than 1000 years, to the Greek astronomer Ptolomy, who stated that the Earth was motionless, and that all other heavenly bodies moved in complicated patterns around the Earth. This view became the accepted view of the Catholic Church, an institution so powerful that few would dare to question it. Until Copernicus, Bruno and Galileo... Learn the life stories of these three great minds, their great breakthroughs, right to their final years. This story is about science and religion. About brave individuals vs a powerful institution. But ultimately, it's about mankind as a species learning to grow up. Like a child must one day learn that it's not the most important thing in the world, humanity had to learn its own small place in the vast universe.
