The revered New York Times bestselling author traces the development of technology from the Industrial Age to the Digital Age to explore the single component crucial to advancement - precision - in a superb history that is both an homage and a warning for our future. At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in eighteenth-century England, standards of measurement were established, giving way to the development of machine tools--machines that make machines....

Humans have always sought to change their environment--building houses, monuments, temples, and roads. In the process, they have remade the fabric of the world into newly functional objects that are also works of art to be admired. In this second edition of his popular Existential Pleasures of Engineering, Samuel Florman explores how engineers think and feel about their profession. A deeply insightful and refreshingly unique text, this book corrects...

Right now, scientists are working on ways to minimize the catastrophic impact of global warming. But they're not designing hybrids or fuel cells or wind turbines. They're trying to lower the temperature of the entire planet--with huge contraptions that suck CO2 from the air, machines that brighten clouds and deflect sunlight, even artificial volcanoes that spray heat-reflecting particles into the atmosphere. This is the radical and controversial world...

"It's 2091 and independent contract companies around the world are producing genetically modified soldiers...to be sold to the highest bidders. Ander Rade is a super-soldier, a genetically engineered living weapon, and has been dutifully following orders since he gave himself to Xyphos Industries' Gene-Mod Program several years ago. But when a mission goes sideways, he's captured, imprisoned, and forced into brutally violent fighting pits for the...

Here is a clear and enthusiastic introduction to building methods from ancient time to the present day, illustrated throughout with line drawings. In addition, Mr. Salvadori discusses recent advances in science and technology that have had important effects on the planning and construction of buildings.

"In Joma West's Face, Margaret Atwood meets Kazuo Ishiguro in this sci-fi domestic drama that reimagines race and class in a genetically engineered society fed by performative fame. How much is your Face worth? Schuyler and Madeleine Burroughs have the perfect Face-- rich and powerful enough to assure their dominance in society. But in SchAddie's household, cracks are beginning to appear. Schuyler is bored and taking risks. Maddie is becoming brittle,...

Whether you're designing a new instrumentation and control (I&C) system, or migrating an existing control system along an upgrade path, you need to have a well-conceived design package-the engineering deliverables and the design process that creates them. This book describes the ideal design package and delves into the business of design engineering. It provides you with a roadmap to understanding the design process, the elements of a successful project,...

The Trikon is a shared industrial space laboratory that was built in orbit, designed as the only risk-free environment for genetic experiments too controversial or dangerous to be performed on Earth.

"A new way of seeing the essential systems hidden inside our walls, under our streets, and all around us Infrastructure is a marvel, meeting our basic needs and enabling lives of astounding ease and productivity that would have been unimaginable just a century ago. It is the physical manifestation of our social contract--of our ability to work collectively for the public good--and it consists of the most complex and vast technological systems ever...

F. Paul Wilson, a practicing physician as well as the bestselling author of the Repairman Jack series, turns his attention to the day after tomorrow and shows us how genetic engineering might change the world. Just a few hundred genes separate humans from chimpanzees. Imagine someone altering the chimp genome, splicing in human genes to increase the size of the cranium, reduce the amount of body hair, enable speech. What sort of creature would result? Sims...