Inventors Science

Drawing on 40 years of research and a treasure trove of new information, Tesla: Wizard at War provides a comprehensive view of Tesla's discoveries, which continue to influence today's military technology and diplomatic strategies. One of the world's leading Tesla experts, Marc J. Seifer, offers new insight into the brilliant scientist's particle beam weapon (aka the "Death Ray") and explores his military negotiations with pivotal historical figures - including his links to Joseph Stalin, Vannevar Bush, General Andrew McNaughton, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

When Temple Grandin was born, her parents knew that she was different. It wasn’t until years later that she was diagnosed with autism, a brain disorder that makes communication difficult. Today, Dr. Temple Grandin is a scientist and professor of animal science at Colorado State University. Her career has revolutionized the livestock industry - each year, half the cattle in the United States are handled in cruelty-free facilities she designed. She is also a passionate advocate for autism, using her experience to prove that people with this disorder can have “normal” lives.

During his lifetime, Buckminster Fuller was hailed as one of the greatest geniuses of the twentieth century. As the architectural designer and futurist best known for the geodesic dome, he enthralled a vast popular audience, inspired devotion from both the counterculture and the establishment, and was praised as a modern Leonardo da Vinci. To his admirers, he exemplified what one man could accomplish by approaching urgent design problems using a radically unconventional set of strategies, which he based on a mystical conception of the universe’s geometry.

Nikola Tesla was a major contributor to the electrical revolution that transformed daily life at the turn of the 20th century. His inventions, patents, and theoretical work formed the basis of modern AC electricity, and contributed to the development of radio and television. Like his competitor Thomas Edison, Tesla was one of America's first celebrity scientists, enjoying the company of New York high society and dazzling the likes of Mark Twain with his electrical demonstrations. An astute self-promoter and gifted showman, he cultivated a public image of the eccentric genius.

Throughout history, people have experimented, invented, and created new ways of doing things. Kid Innovators tells the stories of a diverse group of brilliant thinkers in fields like technology, education, business, science, art, and entertainment, reminding us that every innovator started out as a kid. Florence Nightingale rescued baby mice, Alan Turing was a daydreamer with terrible handwriting, and Alvin Ailey felt like a failure at sports.

Have you ever wondered how war machines were created? Or the origin of beauty salons? Or maybe even how rubber is used in tires, and rubber shoes? Learn more about these renowned inventors and how their inventions helped shape modern life into the way we know it now!

Although Orville and Wilbur Wright are celebrated today as heroes for their revolutionary contributions to science and engineering - they are acknowledged as the first men to successfully achieve powered, piloted flight - their success was hard-earned. In fact, it took the self-taught engineers years of work and dozens of crashes before they managed a single 12-second flight! In this first installment of the brand new Epic Fails series, Ben Thompson and Erik Slader take listeners through the Wright brothers' many mishaps and misadventures as they paved the way for modern aviation.

George Washington Carver wasn't just an inventor. He was also a botanist, a farmer, and a professor. Young listeners will discover how this teacher not only improved the way people farmed, but introduced the world to more than 300 uses for the peanut.

Charlotte leads her group of exiles west, plunging into a wild world of shady merchants and surly rivermen on the way to New Orleans. But as Charlotte learns more about the revolution she has championed, she wonders if she's on the right side after all.

Have you ever wondered just how a glow stick works? Or what about those glow-in-the-dark stars you stick on your ceiling keep on shining? In her first book, author and teacher Anita Sitarski answers these questions and more giving listeners the inside scoop on everything that glows. Fireflies, bacteria, squid, jelly fish—what do all of these things have in common? They glow! It seems like one of mother nature’s mysteries, but many curious scientists have begun to shine light on this beautiful phenomenon.

Antoine Lavoisier reinvented chemistry, overthrowing the long-established principles of alchemy and inventing an entirely new terminology, one still in use by chemists. Madison Smartt Bell’s enthralling narrative comes across like a race to the finish line, as the very circumstances that enabled Lavoisier to secure his reputation as the father of modern chemistry—a considerable fortune and social connections with the likes of Benjamin Franklin—also caused his glory to be cut short by the French Revolution.

Our generation is growing up in a time where we’re seeing problems that have never existed before. Older tools and technique don’t necessarily work anymore to solve such issues. We need a different approach that builds on the latest developments in science and takes an alternate path to innovation. Now more than ever, it’s time to come together to make a difference in society. A Young Innovator’s Guide to STEM strives to impact students, teachers, and educators to adapt to a new learning style - one that can have a positive impact on society.

Have you ever had an idea for a new product or service? That is the first step towards becoming an inventor! Learn the process of inventing something new to solve an everyday problem. Brainstorm! Draw! Make a model! Test! Does it solve the problem? Become an inventor today!

Go on an illuminating journey through the evolution of knowledge and communication with the debut non-fiction book by best-selling author Chris Haughton. Discover how the ways we share and store information have shaped and changed the world in this utterly unique book. A fascinating listen for both children and adults, it is suitable for children from age 8+. What is it that makes technology improve rather than stay static or even fall into decline? The answer is information.

Discover the brilliant life of Hedy Lamarr. This talented film actress became an influential scientist with her invention of a secret radio system in the early 1940s, a building block of today’s wireless communications.

Follow along this brief history of the pursuit of perpetual motion machines and how this endeavor led to the laws of physics we have today. From Robert Park's generator-rigged bicycle, to Robert Fludd's self-running bicycle, to the steam engines of the 19th century, these stories offer a peek into some of mankind's successes and failures when it comes to the exploration of science and advancement.

Armed with unprecedented access to Edison's workshop diaries, notebooks, and letters, Israel brings fresh insights into how the inventor's creative mind worked. For the first time, much attention is devoted to his early family life in Ohio and Michigan, where the young Edison honed his entrepreneurial sense and eye for innovation as a newsstand owner and editor of a weekly newspaper. These experiences underscore the inventor's later successes with new resonance and pathos.

Madam C.J. Walker wasn't just an inventor. She was also a political activist and businesswoman. Young listeners will discover that she was not only fought for civil rights, but became one of the most successful African-American business owners ever.

With only three months of formal education, Thomas Edison grew up to be one of the most successful inventors of all time. Applying scientific principles to practical use, he made scores of inventions and held over thirteen hundred patents, from improvements on the telegraph and phonograph to the development of the incandescent lamp and a whole system for distributing electricity. Edison's rise from humble beginnings and his unceasing struggle to overcome obstacles illustrate the spirit of America.

From the start, his path was never predictable. Steve Jobs was given up for adoption at birth, dropped out of college after one semester, and at the age of 20, created Apple in his parents' garage with his friend Steve Wozniack. Then came the core and hallmark of his genius - his exacting insistence on perfection, his counterculture life approach, and his level of taste and style that pushed all boundaries.