History of engineering & technology
Showing all 9 results
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AI needs you
£20.00AI needs you
Artificial intelligence may be the most transformative technology of our time. As AI’s power grows, so does the need to figure out what – and who – this technology is really for. ‘AI Needs You’ argues that it is critical for society to take the lead in answering this urgent question and ensuring that AI fulfills its promise.
£20.00 -
Analogue
£30.00Analogue
Analogue is a celebration of all things analogue, looking at the machines that shaped the era -Â from reel-to-reel tape recorders and turntables to typewriters and telephones.
£30.00 -
Into the groove
£12.99Into the groove
The story of recorded sound – the technological developments, the people that made them happen and the impact they had on society – from the earliest inventions via the phonograph to LPs, EPs and the recent resurgence of vinyl. While Thomas Edison’s phonograph, the first device that could both record and reproduce sound, represented an important turning point in the story of recorded sound, it was really only the tip of the iceberg, and came after decades of invention, tinkering and experiment. ‘Into the Groove’ tells the story of the birth of recorded sound, from the earliest serious attempts in the 1850s all the way up to the vinyl resurgence we’re currently enjoying. This book celebrates the ingenuity, rivalries and science of the modulated groove.
£12.99 -
Iron, stone and steam
£22.99Iron, stone and steam
Isambard Kingdom Brunel: Victorian icon, engineer, artist, architect, designer and visionary, entrepreneur and celebrity. His astounding feats changed the British landscape, and this new book tells the story of his awe-inspiring achievements and innovations as a railway engineer.
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Isambard Kingdom Brunel
£9.99Isambard Kingdom Brunel
Brunel made plenty of mistakes, some of them ruinously expensive. But he also designed and built several structures which are still with us to this day. For these we have to thank a man who was famously described as ‘in love with the impossible’.
£9.99 -
Ka-boom!
£10.99Ka-boom!
David Darling travels through space and time to find the largest, smallest, stickiest, loudest, quietest, fastest, slowest, heaviest and brightest?
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Nuts and bolts
£12.99Nuts and bolts
Smartphones, skyscrapers, spacecraft. Modern technology seems mind-bogglingly complex. But beneath the surface, it can be beautifully simple. In ‘Nuts and Bolts’, award-winning engineer and broadcaster Roma Agrawal deconstructs our most complex feats of engineering into seven fundamental inventions: the nail, spring, wheel, lens, magnet, string and pump. Each of these objects is itself a wonder of design, the result of many iterations and refinements. Together, they have enabled humanity to see the invisible, build the spectacular, communicate across vast distances, and even escape our planet.
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The long history of the future
£18.99The long history of the future
We love to imagine the future. But why is dramatic future technology always just around the corner, and never a reality? For decades we’ve delighted in dreaming about a sci-fi utopia, from flying cars and bionic humans to hoverboards; with driverless cars first proposed at the 1939 World’s Fair. And why not? Building a better world, be it a free-flying commute or an automated urban lifestyle is a worthy dream. Given the pace of technological change, nothing seems impossible anymore. But why are these innovations always out of reach? Delving into the remarkable history of technology, ‘The Long History of the Future’ also looks at what lies ahead, showing how the origins of our technology may provide insight into how it realistically evolves.
£18.99 -
The power of nuclear
£18.99The power of nuclear
Providing a vivid account of the characters and events that have shaped nuclear power and our thinking around it, ‘The Power of Nuclear’ weaves politics, culture and technology to explore the past and future of nuclear power. Investigating the dawn of the atomic age in the 1940s, it goes on to show how the world came to fear nuclear plants after Chernobyl. In his quest to disentangle myth from facts, Marco Visscher asks: How dangerous is radiation? What should you do after a nuclear accident? And have nuclear weapons really made the world less safe? Also considering the potential of the atom to provide unlimited clean energy and free countries of their dependence on both fossil fuels and foreign imports, this book demonstrates how nuclear could mitigate climate change and offer energy security.
£18.99