Hitting the Books: Renee Descartes had his best revelations while baked in an oven

Some of us do our best thinking in the shower, others do it while on the toilet. Renee Descartes, he pondered most deeply while ensconced in a baker's oven. The man simply needed to be convinced of the oven's existence before climbing in. Such are the quirks of the most monumental minds humanity has to offer. In the hilarious and enthralling new book, Edison's Ghosts: The Untold Weirdness of History's Greatest Geniuses, Dr. Katie Spalding explores the illogical, unnerving, and sometimes downright strange behaviors of luminaries like Thomas "Spirit Phone" Edison, Isaac "Sun Blind" Newton, and Nicola "I fell in love with a pigeon" Tesla. Little Brown and CompanyExcerpted from Edison's Ghosts: The Untold Weirdness of History's Greatest Geniuses by Dr. Katie Spalding. Published by Little, Brown and Company. Copyright © 2023 by Katie Spalding. All rights reserved.When René Descartes Got BakedRené Descartes, like Pythagoras before him and Einstein after, occupies that special place in our collective consciousness where his work has become … well, essentially a short-hand for genius-level intellect. Think about it – in any cartoon or sitcom where one character is (or, through logically-spurious means, suddenly becomes) a brainiac, there are three things they’re narratively bound to say: ‘the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides’ – that’s Pythagoras; ‘E = mc2’ – thank you, Einstein; and finally, ‘cogito ergo sum’. And that is... Continue reading at 'Engadget'

[ Engadget | 2023-05-28 14:30:30 UTC ]
News tagged with: #final act #great book

Other news stories related to: "Hitting the Books: Renee Descartes had his best revelations while baked in an oven"

Hitting the Books: Renee Descartes had his best revelations while baked in an oven

Some of us do our best thinking in the shower, others do it while on the toilet. Renee Descartes, he pondered most deeply while ensconced in a baker's oven. The man simply needed to be convinced of the oven's existence before climbing in. Such are the quirks of the most monumental minds humanity... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2023-05-28 14:30:30 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #great book #final act

NBF’s Book Rich Environments Program Hits Two Million Book Donations

The National Book Foundation program, launched in 2017, has distributed more than two million free books to young people and families in public housing communities across the United States. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-07-24 04:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #million book #national book foundation #free books

iBooks Bestsellers: A Book Editor's Book Hits #1

Audiences have moved toward fun fiction and away from furious facts as Michael Wolff's 'Fire and Fury' takes a tumble to #3 on the iBooks list, while 'The Woman in the Window' by A.J. Finn—a book editor who now writes thrillers under a pen name—takes the #1 slot. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2018-01-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: ##1 slot #ibooks list #michael wolff #book editor #ibooks bestsellers

London Book Fair 2017: Bigger Crowds, Optimism as London Book Fair Hits Its Stride

Surging visitor numbers and a weaker pound have buoyed spirits at a busy 2017 London Book Fair. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2017-03-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #weaker pound

Little Free Library has a new map to help places hit hardest by book bans.

Little Free Library has debuted a new interactive map on its website that charts the locations of Little Free Libraries across the United States, alongside the number of book bans that are in place in each state. The organization built the tool as a way to quickly find the nearest free library —... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2024-09-05 18:27:15 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #libraries #free libraries #book bans #free library #interactive map

New YA Books Hitting Shelves, August 26, 2024

Read your way into a boatload of new YA books hitting shelves this week in hardcover and paperback. Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2024-08-26 15:00:00 UTC ]
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New YA Books Hitting Shelves This Week, July 29, 2024

Dive into the best new YA books hitting shelves this week in hardcover and in paperback. Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2024-07-29 11:30:00 UTC ]
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New YA Books Hitting Shelves This Week, July 22, 2024

Cool off with this week's new YA book releases, featuring romance, time loops, and more. Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2024-07-22 14:45:00 UTC ]
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New YA Books Hitting Shelves This Week: July 15, 2024

Scary short stories, grief and the afterlife, and more of this week's new YA releases in hardcover and in paperback. Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2024-07-15 15:15:00 UTC ]
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23rd Street Books Hits the Road at Macmillan

The grown-up sister imprint of Macmillan’s eclectic graphic novel powerhouse, First Second Books, will launch next year with graphic novels from Gene Luen Yang, Damon Wayans Jr., Saul Williams, Ben Hatke, and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-07-10 04:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #graphic novel #graphic novels

New YA Books Hitting Shelves This Week: July 8, 2024

Read your way into the excellent new YA books in hardcover and paperback hitting shelves this week. Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2024-07-08 15:30:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #hardcover #paperback #ya books

From 'Bridgerton' to 'Ripley,' Netflix's latest hit adaptations have also boosted book sales

Several recent hit Netflix series were adapted from books, leading to a boost in book sales. Next, the streamer is turning to Holly Jackson's book series "A Good Girl's Guide to Murder." Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2024-07-08 10:00:33 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #book series #good girl #holly jackson #book sales

New YA Books Hitting Shelves This Week, July 1, 2024

New YA books hitting shelves this week in hardcover and paperback for your holiday week reading delight. Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2024-07-01 15:30:00 UTC ]
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‘We didn’t expect this phenomenon to last’: France’s comic-book tradition is hitting new heights

The market for bédé visual storytelling almost doubled over the course of the pandemic, but can the birthplace of Asterix continue to nurture creators?Like thousands of French people, Sylvie Pinault discovered comic books during the pandemic. Though bandes dessinées – literally meaning “drawn... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2024-02-06 14:00:36 UTC ]
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Book Review: ‘Critical Hits,’ edited by J. Robert Lennon and Carmen Maria Machado

In the anthology “Critical Hits,” gamers like Hanif Abdurraqib, Alexander Chee and Larissa Pham explain what the medium means to them. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2023-11-20 10:00:28 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #anthology #alexander chee #hanif abdurraqib #robert lennon #book review

Hitting the Books: Voice-controlled AI copilots could lead to safer flights

Siri and Alexa were only the beginning. As voice recognition and speech synthesis technologies continue to mature, the days of typing on keyboards to interact with the digital world around us could be coming to an end — and sooner than many of us anticipated. Where... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2023-10-15 14:30:20 UTC ]
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Hitting the Books: Meet Richard Arkwright, the world's first tech titan

You didn't actually believe all those founder's myths about tech billionaires like Bezos, Jobs and Musk pulling themselves up by their bootstraps from some suburban American garage, did you? In reality, our corporate kings have been running the same playbook since the 18th century when... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2023-09-11 20:50:45 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #artificial intelligence #founders aim #automating cloth-making #endemic culture #independent contractors #company insists

Hitting the Books: Meet Richard Akrwright, the world's first tech titan

You didn't actually believe all those founder's myths about tech billionaires like Bezos, Jobs and Musk pulling themselves up by their bootstraps from some suburban American garage, did you? In reality, our corporate kings have been running the same playbook since the 18th century when... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2023-09-10 14:30:56 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #artificial intelligence #founders aim #automating cloth-making #endemic culture #independent contractors #company insists

Hitting the Books: Why AI won't be taking our cosmology jobs

The problem with studying the universe around us is that it is simply too big. The stars overhead remain too far away to interact with directly, so we are relegated to testing our theories on the formation of the galaxies based on observable data. Simulating these celestial bodies on computers... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2023-06-18 15:30:05 UTC ]
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Hitting the books: Why you shouldn't blog about asking a cop to go shopping for you

You get free stuff, you get free travel, you get the nifty cool title of "brand ambassador," what's not to love about being an internet influencer? There's the consequences, for one. Not even just the warranted consequences of your actual actions, mind you, but also those arriving unbidden based... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2023-06-11 14:30:57 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #penguin random house #devastating impact #ten minutes