EUREKA / HOW INVENTION HAPPENS

Tracing the long pre-history of five twentieth-century inventions which have transformed our lives, Gavin Weightman reveals a fantas tic cast of scientists and inspired amateurs whose ingenuity has given us the airplane, television, bar code, personal computer, and mobile phone. Not one of these inventions can be attributed to a lone genius who experiences a moment of inspiration. Nearly all in novations exist in the imagination before they are finally made to work by the hard graft of inventors who draw on the discoveries o f others...[Llegir més]