A Glorious Accident PDF Download

Author: Wim Kayzer
Publisher: W.H. Freeman
ISBN: 9780716735649
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
In this companion to the Public Television series, journalist Wim Kayzer invited a diverse cast of six of today's greatest scientific thinkers to discuss, debate, and argue their points regarding why we are here on this planet, in this universe.

Author: Michael J. Glauser
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781573453912
Category : Businessmen
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
How do American entrepreneurs conceive their business ideas? Where do they find their first customers? How do they survive? Why do they later describe their business successes as unplanned accidents? Glorious Accidents sheds light on how American entrepreneurs get new ventures off the ground -- from a personal, rather than a strictly business perspective. It portrays the human drama of entrepreneuring in America: the summons and uncertainty, the passion and fear, the surge and reprieve, the hilarity and tears, the freedom and restraint, and the ultimate triumph. Chapters such as, Seizing the Opportunity, Radiating Zeal, Working with Tenacity and Giving Mind-Boggling Service reveal the true life experiences of a diverse group of successful start-ups. Features the stories of business founders coast-to-coast who describe the exhilaration and exhaustion of conceiving an idea, implementing a concept, and building a successful enterprise. Features profiles of 30 businesses, such as Cannondale, Nguyen Electronics, Jazzercise, Blimpie, Burbidge Disposal, Franklin Quest, Icon Sports, and Huntsman Chemical.

Author: Ned Beauman
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1620400243
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 398

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Book Description
Long-listed for the 2012 Man Booker Prize, The Teleportation Accident is a hilarious sci-fi noir about sex, Satan, and teleportation devices. When you haven't had sex in a long time, it feels like the worst thing that could ever happen. If you're living in Germany in the 1930s, it probably isn't. But that's no consolation to Egon Loeser, whose carnal misfortunes will push him from the experimental theaters of Berlin to the absinthe bars of Paris to the physics laboratories of Los Angeles, trying all the while to solve two mysteries: Was it really a deal with Satan that claimed the life of his hero, Renaissance set designer Adriano Lavicini, creator of the so-called Teleportation Device? And why is it that a handsome, clever, modest guy like him can't-just once in a while-get himself laid? Ned Bauman has crafted a stunningly inventive, exceptionally funny, dangerously unsteady and (largely) coherent novel about sex, violence, space, time, and how the best way to deal with history is to ignore it.

Author: Oliver Sacks
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307834107
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 462

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Book Description
From the renowned neurologist and bestselling author of Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat comes a fascinating investigation of the many manifestations of migraine, including the visual hallucinations and distortions of space, time, and body image which migraineurs can experience. “So erudite, so gracefully written, that even those people fortunate enough never to have had a migraine in their lives should find it equally compelling.” —The New York Times The many manifestations of migraine can vary dramatically from one patient to another, even within the same patient at different times. Among the most compelling and perplexing of these symptoms are the strange visual hallucinations and distortions of space, time, and body image which migraineurs sometimes experience. Portrayals of these uncanny states have found their way into many works of art, from the heavenly visions of Hildegard von Bingen to Alice in Wonderland. Dr. Oliver Sacks argues that migraine cannot be understood simply as an illness, but must be viewed as a complex condition with a unique role to play in each individual's life.

Author: Stephen Jay Gould
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393245209
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
"[An] extraordinary book. . . . Mr. Gould is an exceptional combination of scientist and science writer. . . . He is thus exceptionally well placed to tell these stories, and he tells them with fervor and intelligence."—James Gleick, New York Times Book Review High in the Canadian Rockies is a small limestone quarry formed 530 million years ago called the Burgess Shale. It hold the remains of an ancient sea where dozens of strange creatures lived—a forgotten corner of evolution preserved in awesome detail. In this book Stephen Jay Gould explores what the Burgess Shale tells us about evolution and the nature of history.

Author: Daniel C. Dennett
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393348784
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Book Description
One of the world's leading philosophers offers aspiring thinkers his personal trove of mind-stretching thought experiments. Includes 77 of Dennett's most successful "imagination-extenders and focus-holders.O

Author: Oliver Sacks
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0385352573
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
From the bestselling author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, a collection of essays that displays Oliver Sacks's passionate engagement with the most compelling ideas of human endeavor: evolution, creativity, memory, time, consciousness, and experience. "Curious, avid and thrillingly fluent." —The New York Times Book Review In the pieces that comprise The River of Consciousness, Dr. Sacks takes on evolution, botany, chemistry, medicine, neuroscience, and the arts, and calls upon his great scientific and creative heroes--above all, Darwin, Freud, and William James. For Sacks, these thinkers were constant companions from an early age. The questions they explored--the meaning of evolution, the roots of creativity, and the nature of consciousness--lie at the heart of science and of this book. The River of Consciousness demonstrates Sacks's unparalleled ability to make unexpected connections, his sheer joy in knowledge, and his unceasing, timeless endeavor to understand what makes us human.

Author: Stephen Jay Gould
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0609606107
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 165

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Book Description
In this new edition of Questioning the Millennium, best-selling author Stephen Jay Gould applies his wit and erudition to one of today's most pressing subjects: the significance of the millennium. In 1950 at age eight, prompted by an issue of Life magazine marking the century's midpoint, Stephen Jay Gould started thinking about the approaching turn of the millennium. In this beautiful inquiry into time and its milestones, he shares his interest and insights with his readers. Refreshingly reasoned and absorbing, the book asks and answers the three major questions that define the approaching calendrical event. First, what exactly is this concept of a millennium and how has its meaning shifted? How did the name for a future thousand-year reign of Jesus Christ on earth get transferred to the passage of a secular period of a thousand years in current human history? When does the new millennium really begin: January 1, 2000, or January 1, 2001? (Although seemingly trivial, the debate over this issue tells an intriguing story about the cultural history of the twentieth century.) And why must our calendars be so complex, leading to our search for arbitrary regularity, including a fascination with millennia? This revised edition begins with a new and extensive preface on a key subject not treated in the original version. As always, Gould brings into his essays a wide range of compelling historical and scientific fact, including a brief history of millennial fevers, calendrical traditions, and idiosyncrasies from around the world; the story of a sixth-century monk whose errors in chronology plague us even today; and the heroism of a young autistic man who has developed the extraordinary ability to calculate dates deep into the past and the future. Ranging over a wide terrain of phenomena--from the arbitrary regularities of human calendars to the unpredictability of nature, from the vagaries of pop culture to the birth of Christ--Stephen Jay Gould holds up the mirror to our millennial passions to reveal our foibles, absurdities, and uniqueness--in other words, our humanity.

Author: Sean B. Carroll
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691209545
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
"Fascinating and exhilarating—Sean B. Carroll at his very best."—Bill Bryson, author of The Body: A Guide for Occupants From acclaimed writer and biologist Sean B. Carroll, a rollicking, awe-inspiring story of the surprising power of chance in our lives and the world Why is the world the way it is? How did we get here? Does everything happen for a reason or are some things left to chance? Philosophers and theologians have pondered these questions for millennia, but startling scientific discoveries over the past half century are revealing that we live in a world driven by chance. A Series of Fortunate Events tells the story of the awesome power of chance and how it is the surprising source of all the beauty and diversity in the living world. Like every other species, we humans are here by accident. But it is shocking just how many things—any of which might never have occurred—had to happen in certain ways for any of us to exist. From an extremely improbable asteroid impact, to the wild gyrations of the Ice Age, to invisible accidents in our parents' gonads, we are all here through an astonishing series of fortunate events. And chance continues to reign every day over the razor-thin line between our life and death. This is a relatively small book about a really big idea. It is also a spirited tale. Drawing inspiration from Monty Python, Kurt Vonnegut, and other great thinkers, and crafted by one of today's most accomplished science storytellers, A Series of Fortunate Events is an irresistibly entertaining and thought-provoking account of one of the most important but least appreciated facts of life.

Author: William McKeown
Publisher: ECW Press
ISBN: 1554905435
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
The little-known true story of a mysterious nuclear reactor disaster—years before Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, or Fukushima. Before the Three Mile Island incident or the Chernobyl disaster, the world’s first nuclear reactor meltdown to claim lives happened on US soil. Chronicled here for the first time is the strange tale of SL-1, an experimental military reactor located in Idaho’s Lost River Desert that exploded on the night of January 3, 1961, killing the three crewmembers on duty. Through exclusive interviews with the victims’ families and friends, firsthand accounts from rescue workers and nuclear industry insiders, and extensive research into official documents, journalist William McKeown probes the many questions surrounding this devastating blast that have gone unanswered for decades. From reports of faulty design and mismanagement to incompetent personnel and even rumors of sabotage after a failed love affair, these plausible explanations raise startling new questions about whether the truth was deliberately suppressed to protect the nuclear energy industry.