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Technology & Engineering Audiobooks in Science & Technology
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‘Thrilling … High-definition history: tight, thrilling and beautifully researched’ SUNDAY TIMES
‘This book is a triumph’ DAN SNOW
9.07 a.m., April 12, 1961. A top-secret rocket site in the USSR. A young Russian sits inside a tiny capsule on top of the Soviet Union’s most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile – originally designed to carry a nuclear warhead – and blasts into the skies. His name is Yuri Gagarin and he is about to make history.
Travelling at almost 18,000 miles per hour – ten times faster than a rifle bullet – Gagarin circles the globe in just 106 minutes. While his launch begins in total secrecy, within hours of his landing he has become a world celebrity – the first human to leave the planet.
Beyond tells the thrilling story behind that epic flight on its sixtieth anniversary. It happened at the height of the Cold War as the US and USSR confronted each other across an Iron Curtain. Both superpowers took enormous risks to get a man into space first – the Americans in the full glare of the media, the Soviets under deep cover. Both trained their teams of astronauts to the edges of the endurable. In the end the race between them would come down to the wire.
Drawing on extensive original research and the vivid testimonies of eyewitnesses, many of whom have never spoken before, Stephen Walker unpacks secrets that were hidden for decades and takes the reader into the drama – featuring the scientists, engineers and political leaders on both sides, and above all the American astronauts and their Soviet rivals battling for supremacy in the heavens.
A riveting portrait of a rural Pennsylvania town at the center of the fracking controversy
Shale gas extraction-commonly known as fracking-is often portrayed as an energy revolution that will transform the American economy and geopolitics. But in greater Williamsport, Pennsylvania, fracking is personal. Up to Heaven and Down to Hell is a vivid and sometimes heartbreaking account of what happens when one of the most momentous decisions about the well-being of our communities and our planet-whether or not to extract shale gas and oil from the very land beneath our feet-is largely a private choice that millions of ordinary people make without the public's consent.
The United States is the only country in the world where property rights commonly extend 'up to heaven and down to hell,' which means that landowners have the exclusive right to lease their subsurface mineral estates to petroleum companies. Colin Jerolmack spent eight months living with rural communities outside of Williamsport as they confronted the tension between property rights and the commonwealth. In this deeply intimate book, he reveals how the decision to lease brings financial rewards but can also cause irreparable harm to neighbors, to communal resources like air and water, and even to oneself.
One of Time Magazine's Top 100 Inventors in History shares an insider's story of the cellphone, how it changed the world-and a view of where it's headed.
While at Motorola in the 1970s, wireless communications pioneer Martin Cooper invented the first handheld mobile phone. But the cellphone as we know it today almost didn't happen. Now, in Cutting the Cord, Cooper takes listeners inside the stunning breakthroughs, devastating failures, and political battles in the quest to revolutionize-and control-how people communicate. It's a dramatic tale involving brilliant engineers, government regulators, lobbyists, police, quartz crystals, and a horse.
Industry skirmishes sparked a political war in Washington to prevent a monopolistic company from dominating telecommunications. The drama culminated in the first-ever public call made on a handheld, portable telephone-by Cooper himself.
The story of the cell phone has much to teach about innovation, strategy, and management. But the story of wireless communications is far from finished. This book also relates Cooper's vision of the future. From the way we work and the way children learn to the ways we approach medicine and healthcare, advances in the cellphone will continue to reshape our world for the better.
WHAT'S IN STICK AND RUDDER:
- The invisible secret of all heavier-than-air flight: the Angle of Attack. What it is, and why it can't be seen. How lift is made, and what the pilot has to do with it.
- Why airplanes stall How do you know you're about to stall?
- The landing approach. How the pilot's eye functions in judging the approach.
- The visual clues by which an experienced pilot unconsciously judges: how you can quickly learn to use them.
- 'The Spot that does not move.' This is the first statement of this phenomenon. A foolproof method of making a landing approach across pole lines and trees.
- The elevator and the throttle. One controls the speed, the other controls climb and descent. Which is which?
- The paradox of the glide. By pointing the nose down less steeply, you descend more steeply. By pointing the nose down more steeply, you can glide further.
- What's the rudder for? The rudder does NOT turn the airplane the way a boat's rudder turns the boat. Then what does it do?
- How a turn is flown. The role of ailerons, rudder, and elevator in making a turn.
- The landing--how it's made. The visual clues that tell you where the ground is.
- The 'tail-dragger' landing gear and what's tricky about it. This is probably the only analysis of tail-draggers now available to those who want to fly one.
- The tricycle landing gear and what's so good about it. A strong advocacy of the tricycle gear written at a time when almost all civil airplanes were taildraggers.
- Why the airplane doesn't feel the wind.
- Why the airplane usually flies a little sidewise.
- Plus: a chapter on Air Accidents by Leighton Collins, founder and editor of AIR FACTS. His analyses of aviation's safety problems have deeply influenced pilots and aeronautical engineers and have contributed to the benign characteristics of today's airplane.
Stick and Rudder is the first exact analysis of the art of flying ever attempted. It has been continously in print for thirty-three years. It shows precisely what the pilot does when he flies, just how he does it, and why.
Because the basics are largely unchanging, the book therefore is applicable to large airplanes and small, old airplanes and new, and is of interest not only to the learner but also to the accomplished pilot and to the instructor himself.
When Stick and Rudder first came out, some of its contents were considered highly controversial. In recent years its formulations have become widely accepted. Pilots and flight instructors have found that the book works.
Today several excellent manuals offer the pilot accurate and valuable technical information. But Stick and Rudder remains the leading think-book on the art of flying. One thorough reading of it is the equivalent of many hours of practice.
Unabridged and expertly crafted for audiobook listeners.
The Airplane Flying Handbook provides basic knowledge that is essential for pilots. This handbook introduces basic pilot skills and knowledge that are essential for piloting airplanes. It provides information on transition to other airplanes and the operation of various airplane systems. It is developed by the Flight Standards Service, Airman Testing Standards Branch, in cooperation with various aviation educators and industry. This handbook is developed to assist student pilots learning to fly airplanes. It is also beneficial to pilots who wish to improve their flying proficiency and aeronautical knowledge, those pilots preparing for additional certificates or ratings, and flight instructors engaged in the instruction of both student and certificated pilots. It introduces the future pilot to the realm of flight and provides information and guidance in the performance of procedures and maneuvers required for pilot certification. Topics such as navigation and communication, meteorology, use of flight information publications, regulations, and aeronautical decision making are available in other Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) publications.
Occasionally the word 'must' or similar language is used where the desired action is deemed critical. The use of such language is not intended to add to, interpret, or relieve a duty imposed by Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations (14 CFR). It is essential for persons using this handbook to become familiar with and apply the pertinent parts of 14 CFR and the Aeronautical Information Manual (AIM). The AIM is available online at www.faa.gov. The current Flight Standards Service airman training and testing material and learning statements for all airman certificates and ratings can be obtained from www.faa.gov.
This handbook supersedes FAA-H-8083-3A, Airplane Flying Handbook, dated 2004.
Der America's Cup, erstmals 1851 ausgelobt, ist die älteste internationale Sporttrophäe – und bis heute heiß begehrt. Bis auf einen Schweizer „Ausrutscher“ waren es in den letzten Jahrzehnten vor allem die Neuseeländer, die eine Art Daueranspruch auf den Pokal des America's Cup anmeldeten. Bis. ja, bis Larry Ellison, milliardenschwerer Mitbegründer und Geschäftsführer des Softwareimperiums Oracle, sich im Jahr 2000 entschloss, die Trophäe nach Amerika zurückzuholen – und sich der Hilfe von Norbert Bajurin, eines Automechanikers und Commodore des Golden Gate Yacht Clubs, versicherte. Was die beiden ungleichen Partner auf die Beine stellten, um im Jahr 2010 den America's Cup in die USA zurückzuholen und schließlich im nervenzerfetzenden Finale 2013 unter völlig neuen Regeln zu verteidigen, ist das, was man gemeinhin als „ganz großes Kino“ bezeichnet. Julian Guthrie, Journalistin des „San Francisco Chronicle“, hat Hintergründe, Rivalitäten, Leidenschaft und Wissen um den Segelsport, also all jene Dinge, die Larry Ellison und Norbert Bajurin antreiben, gekonnt und hochspannend zusammengetragen.
The astronaut crime that shocked the world
Lisa Nowak had driven 900 miles from Houston to Orlando to intercept and confront her romantic rival in an airport parking lot-allegedly using diapers on the trip so she wouldn't have to stop. Nowak had been dating astronaut William 'Billy' Oefelein when she learned that Oefelein was seeing a new girlfriend-US Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman. The 'astronaut love triangle' scandal quickly made headlines. The world watched as Nowak was dismissed from NASA, pleaded guilty to a felony, and received an 'other than honorable' military discharge.
An award-winning investigative reporter who covered Nowak's criminal case, Kimberly Moore offers behind-the-scenes insights into Nowak's childhood, her rigorous training, and her mission to space. Moore ventures inside the mind of the detective who studied the actions Nowak took that fateful February night. She includes never-before-told details of Nowak's psychiatric diagnosis, taking a serious look at how someone so accomplished could spiral into mental illness to the point of possible attempted murder.
Brought to you by Penguin.
Feel like you're always drowning in email? How much more would you achieve without them - and how much happier would you be?
Emails are an integral part of work today. But the 'kind regards', forwards and attachments we check every 5.4 minutes are making us unproductive, stressed and costing businesses millions in untapped potential.
Bestselling author of Deep Work and Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport, is here to offer a radical new vision - a world without email. Drawing on sociology, behavioural economics and fascinating case studies of thriving email-free companies, Newport explains how this modern tool doesn't work for our ancient brains and provides solutions you can implement today to transform your workday into one without constant, distracting pings.
Revolutionary and practical, A World Without Email will liberate you to do your most profound, fulfilling and creative work - and be happier too.
Praise for A World Without Email:
'If you are currently drowning in endless email and not sure where to start: read this book' Emma Gannon, author of The Multi-Hyphen Method
'Read this superb book. It might just change your life; it's changing mine' Tim Harford, author of How To Make The World Add Up
'This is a bold, visionary, almost prophetic book that challenges the status quo' Greg McKeown, author of Essentialism
Look at the back label of a bottle of wine and you may well see a reference to its terroir, the total local environment of the vineyard that grew the grapes, from its soil to the climate. Winemakers universally accept that where a grape is grown influences its chemistry, which in turn changes the flavor of the wine. A detailed system has codified the idea that place matters to wine. So why don't we feel the same way about whiskey?
In this book, Rob Arnold reveals how innovative whiskey producers are recapturing a sense of place to create distinctive, nuanced flavors. He takes listeners on a world tour of whiskey and the science of flavor, stopping along the way at distilleries in Kentucky, New York, Texas, Ireland, and Scotland. Arnold puts the spotlight on a new generation of distillers, plant breeders, and local farmers who are bringing back long-forgotten grain flavors and creating new ones in pursuit of terroir. In the twentieth century, we inadvertently bred distinctive tastes out of grains in favor of high yields-but today's artisans have teamed up to remove themselves from the commodity grain system, resurrect heirloom cereals, bring new varieties to life, and recapture the flavors of specific local ingredients. The Terroir of Whiskey makes the scientific and cultural cases that terroir is as important in whiskey as it is in wine.
For more than ten thousand years, humans have been fascinated by a seemingly innocuous plant with bright-colored fruits that bite back when bitten. Ancient New World cultures from Mexico to South America combined these pungent pods with every conceivable meat and vegetable, as evident from archaeological finds, Indian artifacts, botanical observations, and studies of the cooking methods of the modern descendants of the Incas, Mayans, and Aztecs. In Chile Peppers: A Global History, Dave DeWitt, a world expert on chiles, travels from New Mexico across the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia chronicling the history, mystery, and mythology of chiles around the world and their abundant uses in seventy mouth-tingling recipes.
