Download or read book Divine Fury written by Darrin M. McMahon and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2013-10-22 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Genius. With hints of madness and mystery, moral license and visionary force, the word suggests an almost otherworldly power: the power to create, to divine the secrets of the universe, even to destroy. Yet the notion of genius has been diluted in recent times. Today, rock stars, football coaches, and entrepreneurs are labeled 'geniuses,' and the word is applied so widely that it has obscured the sense of special election and superhuman authority that long accompanied it. As acclaimed historian Darrin M. McMahon explains, the concept of genius has roots in antiquity, when men of prodigious insight were thought to possess -- or to be possessed by -- demons and gods. Adapted in the centuries that followed and applied to a variety of religious figures, including prophets, apostles, sorcerers, and saints, abiding notions of transcendent human power were invoked at the time of the Renaissance to explain the miraculous creativity of men like Leonardo and Michelangelo. Yet it was only in the eighteenth century that the genius was truly born, idolized as a new model of the highest human type. Assuming prominence in figures as varied as Newton and Napoleon, the modern genius emerged in tension with a growing belief in human equality. Contesting the notion that all are created equal, geniuses served to dramatize the exception of extraordinary individuals not governed by ordinary laws. The phenomenon of genius drew scientific scrutiny and extensive public commentary into the 20th century, but it also drew religious and political longings that could be abused. In the genius cult of the Nazis and the outpouring of reverence for the redemptive figure of Einstein, genius achieved both its apotheosis and its Armageddon. The first comprehensive history of this elusive concept, Divine Fury follows the fortunes of genius and geniuses through the ages down to the present day, showing how -- despite its many permutations and recent democratization -- genius remains a potent force in our lives, reflecting modern needs, hopes, and fears.

Download or read book Flash of Genius written by John Seabrook and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2008-09-02 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays explore inspiration and entrepreneurship in everyday Americans, including the story of Bob Kearns, who invented the intermittent windshield wiper.

Download or read book Sparks of Genius written by Robert Root-Bernstein and published by HMH. This book was released on 2013-08-26 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover the cognitive tools that lead to creative thinking and problem-solving with this “well-written and easy-to-follow” guide (Library Journal). Explore the “thinking tools” of extraordinary people, from Albert Einstein and Jane Goodall to Mozart and Virginia Woolf, and learn how you can practice the same imaginative skills to become your creative best. With engaging narratives and examples, Robert and Michèle Root-Bernstein investigate cognitive tools such as observing, recognizing patterns, modeling, playing, and more. Sparks of Genius is “a clever, detailed and demanding fitness program for the creative mind” and a groundbreaking guidebook for anyone interested in imaginative thinking, lifelong learning, and transdisciplinary education (Kirkus Reviews). “How different the painter at the easel and the physicist in the laboratory! Yet the Root-Bernsteins recognize the deep-down similarity of all creative thinking, whether in art or science. They demonstrate this similarity by comparing the accounts that various pioneers and inventors have left of their own creative processes: for Picasso just as for Einstein, for Klee just as for Feynman, the creative impulse always begins in vision, in emotion, in intuition. . . . With a lavishly illustrated chapter devoted to each tool, readers quickly realize just how far the imagination can stretch.” —Booklist “A powerful book . . . Sparks of Genius presents radically different ways of approaching problems.” —American Scientist

Download or read book The Geography of Genius written by Eric Weiner and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-01-05 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tag along on this New York Times bestselling “witty, entertaining romp” (The New York Times Book Review) as Eric Winer travels the world, from Athens to Silicon Valley—and back through history, too—to show how creative genius flourishes in specific places at specific times. In this “intellectual odyssey, traveler’s diary, and comic novel all rolled into one” (Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness), acclaimed travel writer Weiner sets out to examine the connection between our surroundings and our most innovative ideas. A “superb travel guide: funny, knowledgeable, and self-deprecating” (The Washington Post), he explores the history of places like Vienna of 1900, Renaissance Florence, ancient Athens, Song Dynasty Hangzhou, and Silicon Valley to show how certain urban settings are conducive to ingenuity. With his trademark insightful humor, this “big-hearted humanist” (The Wall Street Journal) walks the same paths as the geniuses who flourished in these settings to see if the spirit of what inspired figures like Socrates, Michelangelo, and Leonardo remains. In these places, Weiner asks, “What was in the air, and can we bottle it?” “Fun and thought provoking” (Miami Herald), The Geography of Genius reevaluates the importance of culture in nurturing creativity and “offers a practical map for how we can all become a bit more inventive” (Adam Grant, author of Originals).

Download or read book Sudden Genius written by Andrew Robinson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-09-16 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Genius and breakthroughs appear to involve something magical. Andrew Robinson looks at what science does, and does not, know about exceptional creativity, and applied it to the stories of ten breakthroughs in the arts and sciences, including Curie's discovery of radium and Mozart's composing of The Marriage of Figaro.

Download or read book Nikola Tesla written by Carol Dommermuth-Costa and published by Twenty-First Century Books. This book was released on 1994-01-01 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recounts the life and accomplishments of the Croatian-born engineer who developed alternating-current technology and invented the radio

Download or read book How to Fly a Horse written by Kevin Ashton and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2015-01-20 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a technology pioneer at MIT and as the leader of three successful start-ups, Kevin Ashton experienced firsthand the all-consuming challenge of creating something new. Now, in a tour-de-force narrative twenty years in the making, Ashton leads us on a journey through humanity’s greatest creations to uncover the surprising truth behind who creates and how they do it. From the crystallographer’s laboratory where the secrets of DNA were first revealed by a long forgotten woman, to the electromagnetic chamber where the stealth bomber was born on a twenty-five-cent bet, to the Ohio bicycle shop where the Wright brothers set out to “fly a horse,” Ashton showcases the seemingly unremarkable individuals, gradual steps, multiple failures, and countless ordinary and usually uncredited acts that lead to our most astounding breakthroughs. Creators, he shows, apply in particular ways the everyday, ordinary thinking of which we are all capable, taking thousands of small steps and working in an endless loop of problem and solution. He examines why innovators meet resistance and how they overcome it, why most organizations stifle creative people, and how the most creative organizations work. Drawing on examples from art, science, business, and invention, from Mozart to the Muppets, Archimedes to Apple, Kandinsky to a can of Coke, How to Fly a Horse is a passionate and immensely rewarding exploration of how “new” comes to be.

Download or read book When Genius Failed written by Roger Lowenstein and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2001-10-09 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A riveting account that reaches beyond the market landscape to say something universal about risk and triumph, about hubris and failure.”—The New York Times NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BUSINESSWEEK In this business classic—now with a new Afterword in which the author draws parallels to the recent financial crisis—Roger Lowenstein captures the gripping roller-coaster ride of Long-Term Capital Management. Drawing on confidential internal memos and interviews with dozens of key players, Lowenstein explains not just how the fund made and lost its money but also how the personalities of Long-Term’s partners, the arrogance of their mathematical certainties, and the culture of Wall Street itself contributed to both their rise and their fall. When it was founded in 1993, Long-Term was hailed as the most impressive hedge fund in history. But after four years in which the firm dazzled Wall Street as a $100 billion moneymaking juggernaut, it suddenly suffered catastrophic losses that jeopardized not only the biggest banks on Wall Street but the stability of the financial system itself. The dramatic story of Long-Term’s fall is now a chilling harbinger of the crisis that would strike all of Wall Street, from Lehman Brothers to AIG, a decade later. In his new Afterword, Lowenstein shows that LTCM’s implosion should be seen not as a one-off drama but as a template for market meltdowns in an age of instability—and as a wake-up call that Wall Street and government alike tragically ignored. Praise for When Genius Failed “[Roger] Lowenstein has written a squalid and fascinating tale of world-class greed and, above all, hubris.”—BusinessWeek “Compelling . . . The fund was long cloaked in secrecy, making the story of its rise . . . and its ultimate destruction that much more fascinating.”—The Washington Post “Story-telling journalism at its best.”—The Economist

Download or read book The Flash of Genius written by Alfred Benjamin Garrett and published by . This book was released on 1963 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How is an idea born? Here is stories showing insights into the discovery process, a picture of the creative mind out of which our major advances over the centuries have been made. The first twenty-five stories in part one are about the important discoveries that have shaped our lives, while part 2 comprised of twenty-six stories, requires some familiarity with modern chemistry and physics.

Download or read book Nikki Tesla and the Fellowship of the Bling Elements of Genius 2 written by Jess Keating and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2020-02-04 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ocean's 11 meets Spy School in this hilarious illustrated middle-grade adventure series featuring the world's greatest tween geniuses. "For a group of geniuses who are supposed to help people, we do an awful lot of stealing." Nikki Tesla and the rest of the Genius Academy team have agreed to pilfer a completely priceless, totally lethal high-tech ring. Why? Because a mad scientist on a power trip plans to use it to do some serious damage. And because the very same mad scientist has kidnapped Mary Shelley. Mess with one genius, and you mess with them all. But mostly they're planning the heist of the century so Nikki can get to know her long-lost father who claims he isn't the criminal mastermind she believes him to be. After all, if a little international thievery can protect the world from evil, it just might save Nikki's family.

Download or read book Reel Views 2 written by James Berardinelli and published by Justin, Charles & Co.. This book was released on 2005 with total page 627 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thoroughly revised and updated for 2005! Includes a new chapter on the best special edition DVDs and a new chapter on finding hidden easter egg features.

Download or read book Genius of Ancient Man written by Don Landis and published by New Leaf Publishing Group. This book was released on 2012 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evidences and commonalities explored from ancient man around the globe!Why structures echoing the Tower of Babel have been recreated on almost every continent and major cultureWhat artifacts and archaeology, technology and innovation, really reveal about the origin of mankindWhy many biblical symbols (rainbows, human sacrifice, mountains, the Son/ sun worship) were, and continue to be, distorted in pagan religious practicesWhat the historical record reveals about Satan's "counterfeit" of God's plan for humanityAll over the world there are similar findings of ancient religions, cities and towers, world travel, advanced astronomy, and civilized government. Over the course of two years, a team of researchers from Jackson Hole Bible College has worked to bring together the different pieces of the convoluted mystery and history of ancient man.Hours of researching, trips to various sites around North and Central America, visits to museums, and meetings with experts have provided the team with an overwhelming amount of evidence for the intelligence of these early innovators. A jumble of anomalies and magnificent structures continue to confound archaeology and anthropology today, yet as the dots are connected, one finds history as described in the biblical record.

Download or read book A Short Bright Flash Augustin Fresnel and the Birth of the Modern Lighthouse written by Theresa Levitt and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2013-06-03 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes the life of the man who invented a new lighthouse lens, capable of shining brighter, farther, and more efficiently than existing light sources, and his fight against the scientific elite, his poor health, and the limits of his era's technology.

Download or read book Flash of Genius written by Philip Railsback and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Genius The Revolution written by Leopoldo Gout and published by Genius. This book was released on 2018-08-07 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Outwit evil organizations. Expose the truth. Rescue their families. Save the world. This is the Revolution.

Download or read book Genius Isolated written by Dean Mullaney and published by Library of American Comics. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a biography of the artist's life and explores his career as a cartoonist and comic book illustrator with such publishing houses as Western, Dell, and National Periodicals, along with a compilation of some of his work.

Download or read book The Concise Guide to Hip Hop Music written by Paul Edwards and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2015-02-10 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1973, the music scene was forever changed by the emergence of hip-hop. Masterfully blending the rhythmic grooves of funk and soul with layered beats and chanted rhymes, artists such as DJ Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash paved the way for an entire new genre and generation of musicians. In this comprehensive, accessible guide, Paul Edwards breaks down the difference between old school and new school, recaps the biggest influencers of the genre, and sets straight the myths and misconceptions of the artists and their music. Fans old and new alike will all learn something new about the history and development of hip-hop, from its inception up through the current day, in The Concise Guide to Hip-Hop Music.