Constellation of Genius - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Constellation of Genius write by Kevin Jackson. This book was released on 2013-09-17. Constellation of Genius available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Ezra Pound referred to 1922 as Year One of a new era. It was the year that began with the publication of James Joyce's Ulysses and ended with the publication of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, two works that were arguably "the sun and moon" of modernist literature, some would say of modernity itself. In Constellation of Genius, Kevin Jackson puts the titanic achievements of Joyce and Eliot in the context of the world in which their works first appeared. As Jackson writes in his introduction, "On all sides, and in every field, there was a frenzy of innovation." It is in 1922 that Hitchcock directs his first feature; Kandinsky and Klee join the Bauhaus; the first AM radio station is launched; Walt Disney releases his first animated shorts; and Louis Armstrong takes a train from New Orleans to Chicago, heralding the age of modern jazz. On other fronts, Einstein wins the Nobel Prize in Physics, insulin is introduced to treat diabetes, and the tomb of Tutankhamun is discovered. As Jackson writes, the sky was "blazing with a ‘constellation of genius' of a kind that had never been known before, and has never since been rivaled." Constellation of Genius traces an unforgettable journey through the diaries of the actors, anthropologists, artists, dancers, designers, filmmakers, philosophers, playwrights, politicians, and scientists whose lives and works—over the course of twelve months—brought a seismic shift in the way we think, splitting the cultural world in two. Was this a matter of inevitability or of coincidence? That is for the reader of this romp, this hugely entertaining chronicle, to decide.
Constellation of Genius
Constellation of Genius - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Constellation of Genius write by Kevin Jackson. This book was released on 2012. Constellation of Genius available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. "Ezra Pound referred to 1922 as Year One of a new era. It was the year in which a shabby Irishman and a natty American entered the cultural landscape, hell-bent on exploding everything that realistic fiction and Georgian poetry held dear. James Joyce's Ulysses and The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot remain the twin towers at the beginning of modern literature; some would say, of modernity itself. ... [This book] puts the accomplishments of Eliot and Joyce in the context of the world in which their works appeared. The Ottoman Empire collapsed, British Liberalism came to an end, Marcus Garvey's dreams for a new Africa were thwarted. Dada was put to rest, [Marcel] Proust died, and Hollywood transformed the nature of fame. [Alfred] Hitchcock directed his first feature, [Wassily] Kandinsky and [Paul] Klee joined the Bauhaus, and Louis Armstrong took the train from New Orleans to Chicago ... [This] is a biography of a year, a journey through the diaries of the actors, anthropologists, artists, dancers, designers, film-makers, philosophers, playwrights, politicians and scientists whose lives and works collided over twelve months, creating a frenzy of innovation which broke the world in two."--Book jacket.
Longitude
Longitude - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Longitude write by Dava Sobel. This book was released on 2010-07-05. Longitude available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. The dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest and of one man's forty-year obsession to find a solution to the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day--"the longitude problem." Anyone alive in the eighteenth century would have known that "the longitude problem" was the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day-and had been for centuries. Lacking the ability to measure their longitude, sailors throughout the great ages of exploration had been literally lost at sea as soon as they lost sight of land. Thousands of lives and the increasing fortunes of nations hung on a resolution. One man, John Harrison, in complete opposition to the scientific community, dared to imagine a mechanical solution-a clock that would keep precise time at sea, something no clock had ever been able to do on land. Longitude is the dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest and of Harrison's forty-year obsession with building his perfect timekeeper, known today as the chronometer. Full of heroism and chicanery, it is also a fascinating brief history of astronomy, navigation, and clockmaking, and opens a new window on our world.
Hereditary Genius
Hereditary Genius - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Hereditary Genius write by Sir Francis Galton. This book was released on 1870. Hereditary Genius available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle.
Einstein and Oppenheimer
Einstein and Oppenheimer - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Einstein and Oppenheimer write by Silvan S. Schweber. This book was released on 2009. Einstein and Oppenheimer available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer, two iconic scientists of the twentieth century, belonged to different generations, with the boundary marked by the advent of quantum mechanics. By exploring how these men differed—in their worldview, in their work, and in their day—this book provides powerful insights into the lives of two critical figures and into the scientific culture of their times. In Einstein’s and Oppenheimer’s philosophical and ethical positions, their views of nuclear weapons, their ethnic and cultural commitments, their opinions on the unification of physics, even the role of Buddhist detachment in their thinking, the book traces the broader issues that have shaped science and the world. Einstein is invariably seen as a lone and singular genius, while Oppenheimer is generally viewed in a particular scientific, political, and historical context. Silvan Schweber considers the circumstances behind this perception, in Einstein’s coherent and consistent self-image, and its relation to his singular vision of the world, and in Oppenheimer’s contrasting lack of certainty and related non-belief in a unitary, ultimate theory. Of greater importance, perhaps, is the role that timing and chance seem to have played in the two scientists’ contrasting characters and accomplishments—with Einstein’s having the advantage of maturing at a propitious time for theoretical physics, when the Newtonian framework was showing weaknesses. Bringing to light little-examined aspects of these lives, Schweber expands our understanding of two great figures of twentieth-century physics—but also our sense of what such greatness means, in personal, scientific, and cultural terms.
