Discoveries and Inventions

If you had never seen an airplane--or even a balloon or a kite--what would convince you that man could fly? Discoveries and Inventions is a series that looks at the history of science and technology from a unique perspective. In each of these concise and highly illustrated books, specialist science writers focus on areas of everyday life that have been vastly changed by discovery, research, and invention. But what makes these books so interesting and so much fun is that no prior knowledge of the subject is assumed. Series editor Rodney Dale has found trade catalogs, advertisements, patent drawings, blueprints, and photographs of inventions and discoveries--all the visual evidence of scientists and inventors bringing their ideas to reality. As we see how each new invention was originally presented to the public, it becomes clear how one invention naturally paved the way to another, how one machine allowed another to be made, and how the need for a new machine or process countered the effect of a preceding one. Based on the wide-ranging resources of the British Library's science and technology collections, this new history taps into our natural fascination for machines, inventions, and figuring out how things work--ideal for budding Thomas Edisons, Orville Wrights, or Rube Goldbergs of any age.Dale, Rodney is the author of 'Discoveries and Inventions', published 1994 under ISBN 9780195209730 and ISBN 0195209737.