Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold

Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold

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  • Author: Tom Shachtman
  • Publisher: HMH
  • ISBN: 0547525958
  • Category : Science
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 275

“A lovely, fascinating book, which brings science to life.” —Alan Lightman Combining science, history, and adventure, Tom Shachtman “holds the reader’s attention with the skill of a novelist” as he chronicles the story of humans’ four-centuries-long quest to master the secrets of cold (Scientific American). “A disarming portrait of an exquisite, ferocious, world-ending extreme,” Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold demonstrates how temperature science produced astonishing scientific insights and applications that have revolutionized civilization (Kirkus Reviews). It also illustrates how scientific advancement, fueled by fortuitous discoveries and the efforts of determined individuals, has allowed people to adapt to—and change—the environments in which they live and work, shaping man’s very understanding of, and relationship, with the world. This “truly wonderful book” was adapted into an acclaimed documentary underwritten by the National Science Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, directed by British Emmy Award winner David Dugan, and aired on the BBC and PBS’s Nova in 2008 (Library Journal). “An absorbing account to chill out with.” —Booklist


Rumspringa

Rumspringa

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  • Author: Tom Shachtman
  • Publisher: North Point Press
  • ISBN: 1466805137
  • Category : Social Science
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 308

A revelatory look at Amish youth as they have never been looked at before Rumspringa is a fascinating look at a little-known Amish coming-of-age ritual, the rumspringa—the period of "running around" that begins for their youth at age sixteen. Through vivid portraits of teenagers in Ohio and Indiana, Tom Shachtman offers an account of Amish life as a mirror to the soul-searching and questing that we recognize as a generally intrinsic part of adolescence. The trappings of the Amish way of life—the "plain" clothes and electricity-free farms—conceal the communities' mystery: how they manage to retain their young people and perpetuate themselves generation after generation. The key to this is the rumspringa, when Amish youth are allowed to live outside the bounds of their faith, experimenting with alcohol, premarital sex, trendy clothes, telephones, drugs, and wild parties. By allowing them such freedom, their parents hope they will learn enough to help them make the most important decision of their lives—whether to be baptized as Christians, join the church, and forever give up worldly ways, or to remain out in the world. In this searching book, Shachtman draws on his skills as a documentarian to capture young people on the cusp of a fateful decision, and to give us an original and deeply affecting portrait of the Amish as a whole.


The Quest for Absolute Zero

The Quest for Absolute Zero

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  • Author: Kurt Mendelssohn
  • Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
  • ISBN:
  • Category : Heat
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 310


Building Tall

Building Tall

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  • Author: John L Tishman
  • Publisher: University of Michigan Press
  • ISBN: 0472028391
  • Category : Architecture
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 240

"John Tishman is a true pioneer in the Construction Management industry. Through his CM leadership, some of America's most well-known buildings have been brought to successful completion." ---Bruce D'Agostino, president and chief executive, Construction Management Association of America "Building Tall will provide readers with insights into John Tishman's career as a visionary engineer, landmark builder, and great businessman. Responsible for some of the construction world's most magnificent projects, John is one of the preeminent alumni in the history of Michigan Engineering. His perspectives have helped me throughout my time as dean, and his impact will influence generations of Construction Management professionals and students." ---David C. Munson, Jr., Robert J. Vlasic Dean of Engineering, University of Michigan In this memoir, University of Michigan graduate John L. Tishman recounts the experiences and rationale that led him to create the entirely new profession now recognized and practiced as Construction Management. It evolved from his work as the construction lead of the "owner/builder" firm Tishman Realty and Construction, and his personal role as hands-on Construction Manager in the building of an astonishing array of what were at the time the world's tallest and most complex projects. These include The world's first three 100-story towers---the original "twin towers" of the World Trade Center in Manhattan and the Hancock Tower in Chicago. The Epcot Center at Disney World. The Renaissance Center in Detroit. New York's Madison Square Garden. Tishman interweaves the stories behind the construction of these and many other important buildings and projects with personal reminiscences of his dealings with Henry Ford, Jr., Disney's Michael Eisner, casino magnate Steve Wynn, and many others into a practical history of the field of Construction Management, which he pioneered. This book will be of interest not only to a general public interested in the stories and personalities behind many of the most iconic construction projects of the post–World War II period in the United States but to students of engineering and architecture and members of the new field of Construction Management.


Dead Center

Dead Center

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  • Author: Shiya Ribowsky
  • Publisher: Harper Collins
  • ISBN: 0061741973
  • Category : True Crime
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 274

A city with eight million people has eight million ways to die For fifteen years, Shiya Ribowsky worked as a medicolegal investigator in New York City’s medical examiner’s office—the largest, most sophisticated organization of its kind in the world. Utilizing his background in medicine, he led the investigations of more than eight thousand individual deaths, becoming a key figure in some of New York’s most bizarre death cases and eventually taking charge of the largest forensic investigation ever attempted: identifying the dead in the aftermath of the September 11 tragedies. Now, in this mesmerizing book, Ribowsky pulls back the curtain on the New York City’s medical examiner’s office, giving an enthralling, never-before-seen glimpse into death and the city. Born and raised in New York City’s orthodox Jewish community, Ribowsky seems an unlikely candidate for this macabre profession. Nevertheless he has forsaken a promising career of medical work with the living, descending instead into the realm of the dead, enticed by the challenge of confronting death on a daily basis. Taking you through the vermin-infested Bowery flophouses and posh Upper East Side apartments of the city’s dead, Ribowsky explores in gruesome detail the skeletons that hang in the Big Apple’s closets. Combing through the autopsy room, he also exposes the grim secrets that only a scalpel and a dead body can tell and explains how forensic investigation does not merely solve crimes—it saves lives. But it is in the aftermath of September 11 that the ME’s office is handed its biggest challenge: to identify as many of the fallen as possible. With poignant descriptions, Ribowsky provides a dramatic account of the office’s diligent and unflappable work with the families of the victims, helping them emerge from the ashes of this tragedy while displaying the strength, grit, intelligence, and compassion that Americans expect from true New Yorkers. At once compelling and heartbreaking, Dead Center is a story of New York unlike any other, blending the haunting with the sublime, while painting a striking portrait of death (and life) in the city that never sleeps.


Gentlemen Scientists and Revolutionaries

Gentlemen Scientists and Revolutionaries

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  • Author: Tom Shachtman
  • Publisher: Macmillan
  • ISBN: 1137278250
  • Category : History
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 274

Explores the scientific pursuits and discoveries of the Founding Fathers, from George Washington's embrace of a smallpox vaccination that saved the American army to Thomas Paine's many inventions, including the first-ever iron span bridge.


The Quest for Absolute Zero

The Quest for Absolute Zero

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  • Author: Kurt Mendelssohn
  • Publisher:
  • ISBN:
  • Category : Low temperature engineering
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 254


The Founding Fortunes

The Founding Fortunes

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  • Author: Tom Shachtman
  • Publisher: St. Martin's Press
  • ISBN: 1250170745
  • Category : History
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 245

In The Founding Fortunes, historian Tom Shachtman reveals the ways in which a dozen notable Revolutionaries deeply affected the finances and birth of the new country while making and losing their fortunes. While history teaches that successful revolutions depend on participation by the common man, the establishment of a stable and independent United States first required wealthy colonials uniting to disrupt the very system that had enriched them, and then funding a very long war. While some fortunes were made during the war at the expense of the poor, many of the wealthy embraced the goal of obtaining for their poorer countrymen an unprecedented equality of opportunity, along with independence. In addition to nuanced views of the well-known wealthy such as Robert Morris and John Hancock, and of the less wealthy but influential Alexander Hamilton, The Founding Fortunes offers insight into the contributions of those often overlooked by popular history: Henry Laurens, the plantation owner who replaced Hancock as President of Congress; pioneering businessmen William Bingham, Jeremiah Wadsworth, and Stephen Girard; privateer magnate Elias Hasket Derby; and Hamilton’s successors at Treasury, Oliver Wolcott, Jr. and Albert Gallatin. The Founders dealt with tariffs, taxes on the wealthy, the national debt, regional disparities, the census as it affected finances, and how much of what America needs should be manufactured at home in ways that remain startlingly relevant. Revelatory and insightful, The Founding Fortunes provides a riveting history of economic patriotism that still resonates today.


Whoever Fights Monsters

Whoever Fights Monsters

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  • Author: Robert K. Ressler
  • Publisher:
  • ISBN: 9780671715618
  • Category : Criminal investigation
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 400

The author of this book played a major part in the FBI's development of psychological profiles for serial killers, he even invented the term serial killer. Whilst Thomas Harris made Ressler's work famous in fiction, Ressler did it for real.


Skyscraper Dreams

Skyscraper Dreams

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  • Author: Tom Shachtman
  • Publisher: Dissertation.com
  • ISBN: 9780595163601
  • Category : Family corporations
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 0

"Fascinating history, showing how the city has been molded by the edifice complexes of risk-takers. The stuff of grand comedy." -Business Week