"How to Succeed as an Inventor" by Goodwin Brooke Smith is a comprehensive guide that delves into the intricacies of the invention process. The book offers practical advice for aspiring inventors, covering essential topics such as idea generation, patenting, and marketing. Smith emphasizes the importance of perseverance and creativity, encouraging readers to embrace their innovative spirit. Through real-life examples and insightful anecdotes, the author illustrates the challenges and trium...

This "superb history" of artificial light traces the evolution of society—"invariably fascinating and often original . . . [it] amply lives up to its title" ( Publishers Weekly, starred review).In Brilliant, Jane Brox explores humankind's ever-changing relationship to artificial light, from the stone lamps of the Pleistocene to the LEDs embedded in fabrics of the future. More than a survey of technological development, this sweeping history reveal...

In the tradition of Mark Kurlansky's Cod and David Bodanis's E=MC2, The Battery is the first popular history of the technology that harnessed electricity and powered the greatest scientific and technological advances of our time.What began as a long-running dispute in biology, involving a dead frog's twitching leg, a scalpel, and a metal plate, would become an invention that transformed the history of the world: the battery. From Alessandro Volta's first ...

A fascinating early 20th Century look at the science of electricity, including some of the interesting and sometimes bizarre uses that early inventors found for the electrical force, such as Edison's electromagnetic pen (a very early form of photocopier), an instrument that could detect the level of starlight, and even (don’t try this one at home kids!) a method for electro-plating lizards!

A great folk hero in American history, Edison is viewed by the public as a facile inventor, the electrical wizard and the perfect symbol of the self-made and practical creator. But he was also a paradoxical figure: deaf, impoverished and with no formal education as a youngster, Edison nevertheless became a fertile and versatile inventor, accumulated fortunes for himself and others but remained indifferent to wealth except as a means towards more inventions.Edison’s key contribution...

It is almost a century since Thomas Alva Edison, the world's greatest inventor, gave the world electric light - and exactly one hundred years since he built the first successful phonograph (forerunner of the gramophone). The man who declared that "genius is 1 per cent inspiration and 99 per cent perspiration," and who on average lodged a patent every two weeks of his adult life, was the most famous American of his day. Only now, however, is it possible to present him clearly against the ba...

Who invented the flying machine? Was the Titanic really the first ‘unsinkable’ ship? How would one use a phonoscope? Using old Victorian documents, Caroline Rochford takes the reader on a guided tour of hundreds of fascinating nineteenth-century inventions from across the globe, some strange and some remarkably familiar. Think solar power is a modern concept? Think again! Today everyone has a camera, but imagine the excitement of taking a snap of a giraffe hotel! This is a surprising journ...

Our everyday lives are continually influenced by inventors whose ideas have led to commercial products available in most high streets across the civilised world. For the most part these creative individuals have remained relatively unknown. Yet some of the companies set up by the successful inventors survive to this day albeit with company names no longer associated with the original idea. Volume 1 of this two volume set documents some of the key inventions from the ‘Spinning Jenny’ invent...

This is a brief description of early watchmaking in a factory setting written during the mid nineteenth century when the master watchmaker was fast being displaced.

The purpose of this little book is to present the essential facts of electrical science in a popular and interesting way, as befits the scheme of the series to which it belongs. Electrical phenomena have been observed since the first man viewed one of the most spectacular and magnificent of them all in the thunderstorm, but the services of electricity which we enjoy are the product solely of scientific achievement in the nineteenth century. It is to these services that the main part of the...

This vintage book contains a guide to portable mantel and table clocks, being an interesting and informative account of the history and production of bracket clocks with pictures and details of famous examples. This detailed yet concise guide will appeal to anyone with a keen interest in horology and antique clocks, and it will be of special interest to collectors of antiquarian literature of this ilk. Although old, the information contained within these pages is timeless, and will be of c...

THIS book contains twelve stories of great inventions, with a concluding chapter on famous inventors of today. Each of the inventions described has added to the comforts and joys of the world. Each of these inventions has brought about new industries in which many men and women have found employment. These stories, therefore, offer an easy approach to an understanding of the origin of certain parts of our civilization, and of the rise of important industries. The story of each invention is...