Best of
Technology

1972

Ignition!: An informal history of liquid rocket propellants


John Drury Clark - 1972
    A favorite of Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, listeners will want to tune into this "really good book on rocket[s]," available for the first time in audio. Ignition! is the story of the search for a rocket propellant which could be trusted to take man into space. This search was a hazardous enterprise carried out by rival labs who worked against the known laws of nature, with no guarantee of success or safety. Acclaimed scientist and sci-fi author John Drury Clark writes with irreverent and eyewitness immediacy about the development of the explosive fuels strong enough to negate the relentless restraints of gravity. The resulting volume is as much a memoir as a work of history, sharing a behind-the-scenes view of an enterprise that eventually took men to the moon, missiles to the planets, and satellites to outer space. A classic work in the history of science, listeners will want to get their hands on this influential classic, available for the first time in decades.

What Computers Still Can't Do: A Critique of Artificial Reason


Hubert L. Dreyfus - 1972
    The world has changed since then. Today it is clear that "good old-fashioned AI," based on the idea of using symbolic representations to produce general intelligence, is in decline (although several believers still pursue its pot of gold), and the focus of the AI community has shifted to more complex models of the mind. It has also become more common for AI researchers to seek out and study philosophy. For this edition of his now classic book, Dreyfus has added a lengthy new introduction outlining these changes and assessing the paradigms of connectionism and neural networks that have transformed the field. At a time when researchers were proposing grand plans for general problem solvers and automatic translation machines, Dreyfus predicted that they would fail because their conception of mental functioning was naive, and he suggested that they would do well to acquaint themselves with modern philosophical approaches to human being. "What Computers Still Can't Do" was widely attacked but quietly studied. Dreyfus's arguments are still provocative and focus our attention once again on what it is that makes human beings unique.

Victorian Inventions


Leonard De Vries - 1972
    Here is a treasure trove of incredible inventions and devices presented in more than 350 illustrations - ranging from steam tricycles, flying machines, dinner table trains and the infamous boneshaker to phonographs, experiments with electricity, musical telephones, chocolate dispensing machines, X-rays, and even devices to prevent snoring and sea-sickness.

Soldiers Adjusted Compensation: Hearings Before the Committee on Finance, United States Senate, Sixty-Sixth Congress, Third Session: On H.R. 14157 .. Volume 6


U.S. Congress - 1972
    This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

One World or None: A Report to the Public on the Full Meaning of the Atomic Bomb


Katharine Way - 1972
    In a small, urgent book of essays, legends including Niels Bohr, Albert Einstein, and Robert Oppenheimer try to help readers understand the magnitude of their scientific breakthrough, fret openly about the implications for world policy, and caution, in the words of Nobel Prize–winning chemist Harold C. Urey, that “There Is No Defense.”The original edition of One World or None sold 100,000 copies and was a New York Times bestseller. Today, with the nuclear issue front and center once more, the book is as timely as ever.Contributors:H.H. ArnoldNiels BohrArthur H. ComptonE.U. CondonAlbert EinsteinThe Federation of American (Atomic) ScientistsIrving LangmuirWalter LippmannPhilip MorrisonJ.R. OppenheimerRichard RhodesLouis N. RidenourFrederick Seitz and Hans BetheHarlow ShapleyLeo SzilardHarold UreyEugene P. WignerGale Young