Showing results for "Quest" in Science & Technology

Brought to you by Penguin. A revelatory portrait of the visionary behind Google DeepMind, the race to control the future – and what it means to win Even in a tech world crowded with visionary leaders, Demis Hassabis is recognized as a special case. Born to working class, immigrant parents in...

An Instant New York Times Bestseller From one of our leading chroniclers of the intersection of innovation and capitalism, a landmark reckoning—based on unprecedented access—with one of the world’s most brilliant and driven tech visionaries, and his game-changing company Even by the...

A "pacy, smartly reported" (Financial Times) account of the historic quest to rekindle the human exploration and colonization of space led by two rival billionaires The Space Barons is the story of a group of billionaire entrepreneurs who are pouring their fortunes into the epic resurrection of...

The Lobotomist explores one of the darkest chapters of American medicine: the desperate attempt to treat the hundreds of thousands of psychiatric patients in need of help during the middle decades of the 20th century. Into this crisis stepped Walter Freeman, MD, who saw a solution in lobotomy, a brain operation intended to reduce the severity of psychotic symptoms. Drawing on Freeman's documents and interviews with Freeman's family, Jack El-Hai takes a penetrating look at the life and work of this complex scientific genius. 

In October 2008, someone going by the name Satoshi Nakamoto posted a white paper outlining 'a peer-to-peer electronic cash system' called Bitcoin to an arcane listserv populated by Cypherpunks. No one in the community had heard of Nakamoto, and just as people were starting to wonder who he was, he vanished. As the years passed, and the scope of Nakamoto's achievement became clear, the truth of his identity grew into the greatest unsolved mystery of our time. The Mysterious Mr Nakamoto traces Benjamin Wallace's attempt to unmask the figure behind the currency and the world it wrought.

A kaleidoscopic journey through the secret history of hues—and the story of the obsessive genius behind the definitions of colors we use today, from the beloved author of Word by Word begonia (n.): 3 -s : a deep pink that is bluer, lighter, and stronger than average coral (see coral 3b), bluer...

Inspired by Albert Einstein's theory of relativity and Bertrand Russell and David Hilbert's pursuit of the fundamental rules of mathematics, some of the most brilliant minds of the generation came together in post-World War I Vienna to present the latest theories in mathematics, science, and philosophy and to build a strong foundation for scientific investigation. Composed of such luminaries as Kurt Gödel and Rudolf Carnap, and stimulated by the works of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper, the Vienna Circle left an indelible mark on science.   

As a graduate student at MIT, Steve Ramirez successfully created false memories in the lab. Now, as a neuroscientist working at the frontiers of brain science, he foresees a future where we can replace our negative memories with positive ones. In How to Change a Memory, Ramirez draws on his own memories of friendship, family, loss and recovery to reveal how memory can be turned on and off like a switch, edited and even constructed from nothing.

It wasn’t supposed to be this hard. If America could send a man to the moon, shouldn’t the best surgeons in the world be able to build an artificial heart? In Ticker, Texas Monthly executive editor and two time National Magazine Award winner Mimi Swartz shows just how complex and difficult...

If your mind has a mind of its own, this is the audiobook that will teach you how to discipline it and stop it wandering off.... Can you really rewire an adult brain? In theory the answer is yes, but there's a problem: no one seems to know exactly how to do it. In Override, science journalist Caroline Williams sets off on a mission for the answer. Delving into the latest studies on brain plasticity, she tries to square her findings with brain plasticity - that the brain adapts physically as we learn something new.

A journey through the attempts artists, scientists, and tinkerers have made to imagine and communicate with the otherworldly using various technologies, from cameras to radiowaves. Strange Frequencies takes readers on an extraordinary narrative and historical journey to discover how people have...

A fascinating investigation into the lucrative, minimally regulated, fast-growing industry of egg freezing, from a young reporter on a personal journey into the world of cutting-edge reproductive medicine “An engaging and groundbreaking book.”—Toni Weschler, MPH, author of Taking Charge of...

The “delightfully macabre” (The New York Times) true tale of a brilliant and eccentric surgeon…and his quest to transplant the human soul. In the early days of the Cold War, a spirit of desperate scientific rivalry birthed a different kind of space race: not the race to outer space that we...

The uplifting, adventure-filled memoir of one groundbreaking scientist’s quest to develop new ways to fight illness and disease through the healing powers of plants. “A fascinating and deeply personal journey.” ­—Amy Stewart, author of Wicked Plants and The Drunken Botanist Traveling by...

Einstein and the Quantum reveals for the first time the full significance of Albert Einstein's contributions to quantum theory. Einstein famously rejected quantum mechanics, observing that God does not play dice. But, in fact, he thought more about the nature of atoms, molecules, and the emission and absorption of light - the core of what we now know as quantum theory - than he did about relativity.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “[A] masterpiece . . . an astonishing book that will leave you questioning your own life and political views.”—USA Today “If any one person can be given credit for transforming the medical establishment’s thinking about health care for the destitute, it is...

When leading Princeton physicist Paul Steinhardt began working in the 1980s, scientists thought they knew all the conceivable forms of matter. The Second Kind of Impossible is the story of Steinhardt’s 35-year-long quest to challenge conventional wisdom. It begins with a curious geometric pattern that inspires two theoretical physicists to propose a radically new type of matter - one that raises the possibility of new materials with never-before-seen properties but that violates laws set in stone for centuries.

The bestselling author of The Accidental Billionaires and The 37th Parallel tells the fascinating Jurassic Park­-like story of the genetic restoration of an extinct species—the woolly mammoth. “Paced like a thriller…Woolly reanimates history and breathes new life into the narrative of...

Brought to you by Penguin. We are entering an empathy crisis. Most of our communication is conveyed through non-verbal cues - facial expressions, tone of voice, body language - nuances that are completely lost when we interact through our smartphones and other technology. The result is a digital...

La biografía del mundialmente famoso empresario y prodigioso genio de la tecnología de nuestros tiempos - ¡Elon Musk! ¿Quién es Elon Musk y cómo ha logrado tanto? Ashlee Vance ofrece una mirada iluminadora y autorizada a la extraordinaria vida de una de las figuras más inusuales y ambiciosas en la historia de los negocios de Estados Unidos. El innovador detrás de SpaceX, Tesla, SolarCity y PayPal.