Изобретения Дедала

by David E.H. Jones, Дэвид Джоунс, А. Доброславский (Translator)

Научно-популярная книга английского популяризатора науки и техники, выступавшего в течение многих лет на страницах журнала New Scientist под псевдонимом «Дедал». В живой и увлекательной форме автор рассказывает о смелых, поражающих воображение «идеях» современного Дедала – от твердой «газировки» и электрического садовника до молекулярного гироскопа и магнитного монополя.

Написанная с большим юмором, красочно иллюстрированная, книга адресована всем интересующимся достижениями науки и техники.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science

Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

Reviews

[Jonatron · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this for my dad for Christmas, and got to flip through it some before I left for home. It's pretty much a compendium of zany ideas that just might work. Suspending a hippie commune in the sky from a methane balloon constantly refilled by photosynthetic bacteria, extracting sound recordings from paintings or pottery made before Edison was even born, propelling ships by causing tornados to form around them, cleaning babies with electrolysis instead of soap, etc.

Many of the ideas are impossible or wrong (tying knots in magnetic fields by tying knots in the magnet and then unraveling it, for instance), but that's not the point. The author knows perfectly well that the ideas won't work. The enjoyment comes from thinking through why they would or wouldn't work, and learning to think critically and skeptically, without resorting to the opposite extreme of pseudo-skepticism.

Some of the ideas work perfectly well, as outlandish as they seem, and have actually been built. We skeptics need to be careful not to get in the habit of rejecting things just because they seem too good to be true at first glance.

In the same vein, the author is also known for designing perpetual motion machines and exhibiting them. Of course they are not really perpetual motion machines. The trick is in figuring out how they actually work without any visible power source.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great collection of brainstormed ideas written as jokes for a column in New Scientist, some possibly practical, some wonderfully absurd. For example, he independently invents stereolithography in one column; in another he tries to determine the mass of the soul.

[Badal]

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- Casey Handmer via Nat Friedman

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book, giving approximately 100 idea for inventions, each fitting in two pages. These ideas cover a staggering range of subjects, such as ideas for new currencies, how for humans on earth to fly with just their arms and legs, methods to see infrared or ultraviolet radiation without goggle viewers, using icebergs as a self-powered means of moving vast quantities of materials around the oceans, etc etc. Some of the schemes are so wild they must be dismissed; most seem just feasible enough to be tantalizing and intriguing.

[Steven Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once of my absolute favorite books, and one of the few I re-read regularly. Brilliant schemes / inventions backed by hard science and math - probably flawed, but still provoking the imagination and leading to eventual insight.

[Victor Sergienko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Одна из книг, которые сделали меня инженером.

[Yuri Karabatov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly entertaining, and some inventions are eerily contemporary.