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 ]
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We Americans love to have ourselves a big old time. It's not just our waistlines that have exploded outward since the post-WWII era. Our houses have grown larger, as have the appliances within them, the vehicles in their driveways, the income inequalities between ourselves and our neighbors, and... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2023-06-04 14:30:20 UTC ]
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Seemingly overnight, Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX, went from cryptocurrency wunderkind to wanted for questioning by the FBI. After years of unfettered success, the walls of SBF's blockchain empire came crumbling down around him as his tricky financial feats failed and his generalized... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2023-05-14 14:30:33 UTC ]
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Maria Isabel Sánchez Vegara’s book, illustrated by Matt Hunt, is the first of the Little People, Big Dreams series to top the standingsA children’s biography of King Charles III has topped the UK book chart before the coronation on 6 May.Maria Isabel Sánchez Vegara’s King Charles is part of the... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-05-05 09:57:25 UTC ]
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"Birds fly South for the winter and North for the summer," has historically proven to be only slightly less reliable a maxim than the sun always rising in the East and setting in the West. Humanity has been fascinated by the comings and goings of our avian neighbors for millennia, but the why's... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2023-04-02 14:30:53 UTC ]
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Science is the reason you aren't reading this by firelight nestled cozily under a rock somewhere however, its practice significantly predates its formalization by Galileo in the 16th century. Among its earliest adherents — even before pioneering efforts of Aristotle — was Animaxander, the Greek... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2023-03-12 14:30:52 UTC ]
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Deep Brain Stimulation therapies have proven an invaluable treatment option for patients suffering from otherwise debilitating diseases like Parkinson's. However, it — and its sibling tech, brain computer interfaces — currently suffer a critical shortcoming: the electrodes that convert electron... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2023-03-04 15:30:03 UTC ]
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Some of us are destined to lead successful lives thanks to the circumstances of our birth. Some of us, like attorney Bruce Jackson, are destined to lead such lives in spite them. Raised in New York's Amsterdam housing projects and subjected to the daily brutalities of growing up a black man in... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2023-02-19 15:30:33 UTC ]
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America's first astronauts from the 1960s were all pulled from the highest ranks of the nation's military. As such, NASA's first few classes tended to conform to a rather specific demographic theme — white, male, flattop haircut you could set a watch too. By the mid-70's however, the space... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2023-02-12 15:30:30 UTC ]
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New York Times suggests Spare could be one of most divisive celebrity memoirs as comedians and talkshow hosts weigh inConcern, comedy, and confusion – Prince Harry’s upcoming book has generated different reactions across the US, his adopted home country.Excerpts from the autobiography Spare were... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-01-07 19:39:06 UTC ]
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Whether you love spy fiction, romances, sprawling sagas, or even horror, there’s a new historical fiction book for you on this list, like In the Upper Country by Kai Thomas. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2022-12-21 11:36:00 UTC ]
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The holiday travel season is once again upon us! It's the magical time of the year that combines standing in airport security lines with incrementally losing your mind as the hands of your watch perpetually tick closer to a boarding time that magically moved up 45 minutes since you left the... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2022-12-04 15:30:19 UTC ]
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The impact of Japanese RPGs on pop and gaming culture cannot be overstated. From Final Fantasy and Phantasy Star to Chrono Trigger, NieR, and Fire Emblem — JRPGs have spanned console generations, bridged the Japanese and North American markets, spawned entire universes of IP and delivered... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2022-11-06 15:30:37 UTC ]
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Women have faced gender-based discrimination in the workforce throughout history, denied employment in all but a handful of subservient roles, regularly ignored for promotions and pay raises — and rarely ever compensated at the same rates as their male peers. This long and storied socioeconomic... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2022-10-30 14:30:31 UTC ]
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General Motors has been in business for more than a century, but in its 112 years, the company has never faced such challenges as it does in today's rapidly electrifying and automating industry. The assembly line jobs from Detroit's heyday have been replaced by legions of automated industrial... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2022-10-23 14:30:06 UTC ]
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After Mary Sears and her team had revolutionized the field of oceanography, but before Katherine G. Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson helped put John Glenn into orbit, a cadre of women programmers working for the US government faced an impossible task: train ENIAC, the world's first ... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2022-10-16 14:30:01 UTC ]
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Apple's Watch Ultra, with its 2000-nit digital display and GPS capabilities, is a far cry from its Revolutionary War-era self-winding forebears. What sorts of wondrous body-mounted technologies might we see another hundred years hence? In his new book, The Skeptic's Guide to the Future, Dr.... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2022-10-01 14:30:47 UTC ]
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We all have those thoughts, the ones that come to us in the small hours of the night. Who am I? Why are we here? What if my cellphone ran on vacuum tubes instead? Randall Munroe has the answer to, well, only one of those questions, but also the answers to a whole bunch of others collected... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2022-09-18 15:00:37 UTC ]
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Lethal Tides tells the story of pioneering oceanic researcher Mary Sears and her leading role in creating one of the most important intelligence gathering operations of World War II. Languishing in academic obscurity and roundly ignored by her male colleagues, Sears is selected for command by... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2022-09-04 15:00:53 UTC ]
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I’m Glad My Mom Died details the abuse the iCarly actor suffered as a child star. Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2022-08-18 20:31:47 UTC ]
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C. J. Hauser’s memoir-in-essays is a frank exploration of intimacy and romance that doesn’t always lead to a happily ever after. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2022-07-05 13:21:38 UTC ]
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