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The Innovators : How a Group of Inventors, Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution
Following his blockbuster biography of Steve Jobs, The Innovators is Walter Isaacson's story of the people who created the computer and the Internet. It is destined to be the standard history of the digital revolution and a guide to how innovation really works. What talents allowed certain inventors and entrepreneurs to turn their disruptive ideas into realities? What led to their creative leaps? Why did some succeed and others fail? In his exciting saga, Isaacson begins with Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron's daughter, who pioneered computer programming in the 1840s. He then explores the fascinating personalities that created our current digital revolution, such as Vannevar Bush, Alan Turing, John von Neumann, J.C.R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Robert Noyce, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Tim Berners-Lee and Larry Page. This is the story of how their minds worked and what made them so creative. It's also a narrative of how their ability to collaborate and master the art of teamwork made them even more creative. For an era that seeks to foster innovation, creativity and teamwork, this book shows how they actually happen.
NOTEBOOK, Math rebel, where are you?
[Albert Einstein] intuitively understood that math was nature's playbook. So, at age 16, being a bit more advanced than my daughter, he was imagining and picturing Maxwell's equations, which describe electromagnetic waves. How would these equations be manifest, he wondered, to someone who was riding alongside a light beam? If you caught up, the waves should seem stationary relative to you, but Maxwell's equations didn't allow for that. It worried Einstein mightily for the next 10 years. Others had come close to that insight, including Henri Poincar and Hendrik Lorentz. But Einstein had a rebelliousness, a willingness not to conform, that they lacked. He alone was willing to discard the notion of absolute time, which had been a sacred tenet of classical physics ever since Sir Issac Newton in his \"Principia\" had declared in 1687 that it tick-tocked along \"without relation to anything external.\"
Newspaper Article
Leonardo da Vinci
\"Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo's astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson weaves a narrative that connects his art to his science. He shows how Leonardo's genius was based on skills we can improve in ourselves, such as passionate curiosity, careful observation, and an imagination so playful that it flirted with fantasy\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Atlas of Gynecologic Surgery
A superb work of art as well as an outstanding clinical reference, this book continues the rich tradition of earlier editions by providing unparalleled coverage of the entire field of gynecologic surgery. This new fourth edition offers completely updated content, user-friendly features, and the cornerstone of the book: an art program of astounding quality. It is indispensable for gynecologic surgeons or residents who need to review, refresh, or fine-tune their skills in preparation for surgery, while being alerted to pitfalls and possible complications at every juncture. Special features of the new 4th edition of this world-famous atlas: * Nearly 1, 200 stunning watercolor drawings that provide a visual depiction of operative steps unequalled in the literature * Detailed, point-by-point descriptions of routine as well as more complex procedures * Full coverage of abdominal, vaginal, and endoscopic approaches in sections on the adnexa, uterus, vulva/vagina, and pelvic floor * Introduction of the new Procedure Navigator section, which facilitates a convenient search from disease to indication to medical or surgical treatment of choice * A truly international perspective, with leading specialists from Europe and the United States sharing their clinical experience and wisdom Complete with expert foundational chapters on pre- and postoperative treatment, informed consent, instrumentation, indications and contraindications, risks and complications, and more, this book is both beautiful and informative. Its step-by-step didactic concept is ideal for residents-in-training, while its detailed description of both common and rare procedures makes it useful for experienced surgeons. For all specialists, Atlas of Gynecologic Surgery is a standard, must-have reference on current methodology and clinical protocols in this rapidly evolving field.
eBook
Einstein : the man, the genius, and the theory of relativity
\"Albert Einstein is synonymous with genius. From his remarkable theory of relativity and the famous equation E=mc², to his concept of a unified field theory, no one else has contributed as much to science in the last 150 years. Published to commemorate the centenary of Einstein developing his theory of general relativity, Einstein : the Life of a Genius reveals the man behind the science, from his early years and experiments in Germany and his struggle to find work, to his marriages and children, his role in the development of the atomic bomb and his work for civil rights groups in the United States. Drawing on personal memorabilia belonging to Einstein, this book also includes reproductions of documents that reveal more than this scientist's groundbreaking theories\"--Page 4 of cover.
Book
A COUNCIL OF 'WISE MEN' FOR REAGAN
President John F. Kennedy, having been burned by the Bay of Pigs fiasco, summoned a group of elder statesmen who had shaped America's bipartisan foreign policy consensus after World War II - they included Dean Acheson, John J. McCloy and Robert A. Lovett - to join in the tense deliberations over the Cuban missile crisis. ''The best service we could perform is to try to approach this the way Colonel Stimson would,'' Mr. Lovett told the national security adviser, McGeorge Bundy, invoking the memory of Henry L. Stimson, whose rotation in and out of top posts during the first half of this century made him the patron saint of bipartisan commissions. At Mr. Bundy's suggestion, President Johnson created a formal advisory group, which became known as ''the wise men,'' to give the Establishment's imprimatur to the Vietnam War. Initially, they did. But even when such panels are created to affirm what a President plans to do anyway, things can turn out differently. By March 1968, Averell Harriman had succeeded in convincing his old friend Dean Acheson that the war was futile. When ''the wise men'' met that month, Mr. Acheson led them in telling President Johnson so. Within a week, the President announced that he would seek negotiations and drop his bid for re-election. Nor, for that matter, should a President necessarily be expected to take the advice of blue-ribbon panels. By their very nature, such groups tend to revere conventional wisdom. That can have a dampening effect, particularly when there is a need for boldness and risk-taking. President [Ronald Reagan]'s tenure has been marked by risks that defy the conventional wisdom - among them, invading Grenada, launching air strikes against Libya and proposing a ''Star Wars'' defense system that challenges the notion of nuclear deterrence. Like his dealings with Iran and support for the contras, these initiatives are debatable. But it would be unhealthy to set up a system that enshrined conventional thinking to such an extent that it prevented bold new approaches.
Newspaper Article
The innovators : how a group of hackers, geniuses, and geeks created the digital revolution
\"Following his blockbuster biography of Steve Jobs, The Innovators is Walter Isaacson's revealing story of the people who created the computer and the Internet. It is destined to be the standard history of the digital revolution and an indispensable guide to how innovation really happens. What were the talents that allowed certain inventors and entrepreneurs to turn their visionary ideas into disruptive realities? What led to their creative leaps? Why did some succeed and others fail? In his masterly saga, Isaacson begins with Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron's daughter, who pioneered computer programming in the 1840s. He explores the fascinating personalities that created our current digital revolution, such as Vannevar Bush, Alan Turing, John von Neumann, J.C.R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Robert Noyce, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Tim Berners-Lee, and Larry Page. This is the story of how their minds worked and what made them so inventive. It's also a narrative of how their ability to collaborate and master the art of teamwork made them even more creative. For an era that seeks to foster innovation, creativity, and teamwork, The Innovators shows how they happen\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
THE MAN WHO WALKED IN THE WOODS
The most interesting revelation here involves the Berlin crisis of 1961, when the Soviet Union threatened to cut off that city's access to the West. Mr. [Paul H. Nitze] represented the Defense Department on an interdepartmental task force dealing with the crisis. The plan they drew up, he says, had as its fourth phase ''the escalating use of nuclear weapons.'' During the 1950's, Mr. Nitze had been an early advocate of preparing for ''limited'' nuclear wars, using tactical nuclear weapons. In this instance, he argued for considering a pre-emptive all-out strategic strike. ''Since demonstrative or tactical use of nuclear weapons would greatly increase the temptation to the Soviets to initiate a strategic strike, it would be best for us, in moving toward the use of nuclear weapons, to consider most seriously the option of an initial strategic strike of our own,'' he writes. ''This, I believed, could assure us victory in at least a military sense in a series of nuclear exchanges.'' Robert S. McNamara, then the Secretary of Defense, says he has no recollection of this discussion. In any event, the Soviet Union decided not to blockade Berlin, and the crisis dissipated. Mr. Nitze's combination of practicality and anti-Communist instincts was put to the test by the Vietnam War. After a 1965 trip to Saigon, he told Mr. McNamara that it would take more than 200,000 American soldiers for the United States to be successful and in the end would not be ''worth the cost.'' Bearing down on Mr. Nitze with ''piercing black eyes,'' Mr. McNamara asked, ''If we withdraw from Vietnam, do you believe the Communists will test us in another location?'' Yes, Mr. Nitze replied. Could he feel confident, Mr. McNamara continued, that stopping them in the next area they probed would be easier? ''No, I can't,'' said Mr. Nitze, and thus he remained a loyal soldier in Washington's war effort, though with continuing qualms. Using a cost-benefit analysis and drawing on the lessons he learned from the World War II bombing survey, he came to oppose the bombing of North Vietnam on practical grounds. In the bloodless, strangely detached tone of his memoirs, he notes that when he was in charge of protecting the Pentagon from a massive antiwar march, ''three of my four children were among the demonstrators - I suspect, more out of curiosity than for protest.''
Book Review
The innovators
\"Following his blockbuster biography of Steve Jobs, The Innovators is Walter Isaacson's revealing story of the people who created the computer and the Internet. It is destined to be the standard history of the digital revolution and an indispensable guide to how innovation really happens. What were the talents that allowed certain inventors and entrepreneurs to turn their visionary ideas into disruptive realities? What led to their creative leaps? Why did some succeed and others fail? In his masterly saga, Isaacson begins with Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron's daughter, who pioneered computer programming in the 1840s. He explores the fascinating personalities that cr eated our current digital revolution, such as Vannevar Bush, Alan Turing, John von Neumann, J.C.R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Robert Noyce, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Tim Berners-Lee, and Larry Page. This is the story of how their minds worked and what made them so inventive. It's also a narrative of how their ability to collaborate and master the art of teamwork made them even more creative. For an era that seeks to foster innovation, creativity, and teamwork, The Innovators shows how they happen\"-- provided by publisher.
Book
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MR. X
Unfortunately, however, Mr. [David Mayers] seems to miss much of what is intellectually exciting about Mr. [GEORGE KENNAN]. To cite one example: in his famous 1947 article outlining containment, known as the ''X article'' because he published it anonymously as Mr. X, Mr. Kennan concluded that the policy would ''promote tendencies which must eventually find their outlet in either the break-up or the gradual mellowing of Soviet power.'' This is an important aspect of his thinking, one that he stresses in his memoirs, and it is particularly relevant given the changes occurring in the Soviet Union today. Yet Mr. Mayers virtually ignores this line of argument, dismissing it as ''indiscriminate language'' mainly designed to please Mr. Kennan's patron at the time, Navy Secretary James Forrestal. Mr. Mayers is squarely in the academic category, and therein lies the other major shortcoming of his book. He has drawn his conclusions mostly from the documents he has sifted through in boxes at Princeton University, the National Archives and elsewhere. That dusty undertaking is laudable, but it hardly provides for a full picture of a person, especially someone like George Kennan, whose personality and experiences are so integrally related to his ideas. (A word of full disclosure here: a book - ''The Wise Men'' - that I wrote with Evan Thomas and that had Mr. Kennan as a main character was far more anecdotal and personal, and admittedly less academic. Mr. Mayers refers to it in a footnote as containing ''colorful details,'' which I assume is intended as something of a compliment, though it indicates the difference in our approaches.) The problem with relying on archives to provide an understanding of Mr. Kennan's influence is that, by his own admission in his memoirs, most of what he wrote as a diplomat was destined to languish unread and much of what was read was destined to be misinterpreted. In addition, memos in general are more likely to obscure the truth than to record it. Consequently, the testimony of Mr. Kennan's colleagues - such as Paul Nitze, Clark Clifford, John McCloy and other very willing raconteurs - is critical to determining what role he actually played in shaping policy. Likewise, the recollections and private letters available from his sisters and daughters give an important glimpse into the personality traits that often affected Mr. Kennan's intellectual development. But judging from both his analysis and his source notes, Mr. Mayers inexplicably appears to have eschewed this type of research.
Book Review