Showing titles in Science & Technology

This illuminating biography reveals how the daughter of Lord Byron, Britain's most infamous Romantic poet, became the world's first computer programmer.

Even when he was a kid, Albert Einstein did things his own way. He thought in pictures instead of words, and his special way of thinking helped him understand big ideas like the structure of music and why a compass always points north. Those ideas made him want to keep figuring out the secrets of the universe. Other people thought he was just a dreamer, but because of his curiosity, Einstein grew up to be one of the greatest scientists the world has ever known.

Amelia Earhart refused to accept no for an answer; she dared to do what no one had ever done before and became the first woman to fly a plane all the way across the Atlantic Ocean. This audiobook follows her from childhood to her first flying lessons and onward to her multi-record-breaking career as a pilot.

Before John Glenn orbited the Earth or astronauts walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as “human computers” used their knowledge, pencils, adding machines, and writing paper to calculate the orbital mechanics needed to launch spacecraft. Katherine Johnson was one of these mathematicians who used trajectories and complex equations to chart the space program. Even as Virginia’s Jim Crow laws were in place in the early 1950s, Katherine worked analyzing data at the NACA (later NASA) Langley laboratory.

By building his own microscope, Antony van Leeuwenhoek advanced humanity's understanding of the oft-invisible world around us. Microbes are everywhere: in the soil and oceans, in snow, and inside our bodies. But in Antony van Leeuwenhoek’s time, people believed that what they saw with their own eyes was all that existed in the world. How did a simple tradesman - who didn’t go to college or speak English or Latin like all the other scientists - change everyone’s minds?

Telling the inspiring human story behind the creation of the Paralympics, this young listener's biography showcases a riveting narrative to honor the life of Ludwig Guttmann, whose work profoundly changed so many lives. Dedicating his life to helping patients labeled incurables, Ludwig Guttmann fought for the rights of paraplegics to live a full life. The young doctor believed - and eventually proved - that physical movement is key to healing, a discovery that led him to create the first Paralympic Games.

Young Neil deGrasse Tyson was starstruck when he first visited the sky theater at the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. He couldn't believe the crowded, glittering night sky at the planetarium was real - until a visit to the country years later revealed the impossible. That discovery was like rocket fuel for Neil's passion about space. This story of how one boy's quest for knowledge about space led him to become a star scientist is perfect for young children who are fascinated by the universe, aspiring scientists, and the dreamer in all of us.

Ernest Everett Just was not like other scientists of his time. He saw the whole, where others saw only parts. He noticed details others failed to see. He persisted in his research despite the discrimination and limitations imposed on him as an African American. His keen observations of sea creatures revealed new insights about egg cells and the origins of life.

Have you ever dreamed of going to outer space? When Sally Ride was a little girl, she watched on TV as astronaut John Glenn launched into space. Twenty years later, she became the first American woman to go to space. Ride had loved science since she was young. Some of her teachers thought she was wasting her time studying science, but she went on to earn her PhD in astrophysics anyway. When NASA's astronaut training program opened to women, Ride quickly applied. Some people thought women couldn't handle space flight. But Ride worked hard and proved them all wrong.

Do you think science is fun and exciting? Bill Nye does. In fact, he wanted to become an astronaut, but NASA rejected his applications. Instead, Nye has spent his career helping other people understand science and showing them how cool science can be. Nye went to college to become a mechanical engineer, and he got a job working for an aircraft company. But soon, he began focusing more and more on a career in comedy. Eventually, he got his own popular TV show called Bill Nye the Science Guy.

Do you like to gaze at the stars? So did the young Stephen Hawking. Eventually, he turned his fascination with the night sky into a career of trying to figure out how the universe began and how it works. As a child, Hawking loved the stars and he loved math class. In college, he studied physics and cosmology, or how the universe came to be. But then he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a disease that shuts down the nerves that control muscles.

Have you ever stared into the night sky, full of stars and planets? As a kid, Neil deGrasse Tyson was star-struck when he first visited a planetarium. The universe was calling him. Tyson pursued his interest in astronomy and studied to be an astrophysicist. In 1996, he became the director of New York's Hayden Planetarium. He is passionate about teaching people about the universe. Known for making science fun and easy to understand, he has hosted and appeared on TV shows such as Nova ScienceNow and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Discover eye-opening facts about a collection of go-getting women who have pioneered careers in a kaleidoscope of different industries. Prepare yourself for a celebration of women who opened doors and made it possible for more women to achieve amazing things today. List of women featured: Junko Tabei, Sophie Blanchard, Maria Merian, Elizabeth Magie, the London Matchgirls, Rosa May Billinghurst, Katherine Johnson, Annette Kellerman, Katia Krafft, Rosalind Franklin, James Barry, Madam C.J. Walker and Lotte Reiniger.

In the 1960s, locked in a heated race to launch the first human into space, the United States selected seven superstar test pilots and former military air fighters to NASA's astronaut class - the Mercury 7. The men endured grueling training and constant media attention for the honor of becoming America's first space heroes. But a group of 13 women - accomplished air racers, test pilots, and flight instructors - were enduring those same astronaut tests in secret, hoping to defy social norms and earn a spot among the stars.

Sure, almost all kids know Benjamin Franklin as one of America's Founding Fathers, a man with a hand in both the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. And they may even have some vague idea that he once flew a kite during a lightning storm. What Kathleen Krull sets out to do in this very different biography is show Ben Franklin as the natural philosopher (the term for scientists back in the 1700s), whose experiments led to important discoveries about the nature of electricity - including his famous demonstration that electricity and lightning were one and the same.

All his life, Charles Darwin hated controversy. Yet he takes his place among the Giants of Science for what remains an immensely controversial subject: the theory of evolution. Darwin began piecing together his explanation for how all living things change or adapt during his five-year voyage on the HMS Beagle. But it took him 20 years to go public, for fear of the backlash his theory would cause.

Albert Einstein: His name has become a synonym for genius. His wild case of bedhead and playful sense of humor made him a media superstar - the first, maybe only, scientist-celebrity. He wasn’t much for lab work - in fact, he had a tendency to blow up experiments. What he liked to do was think - not in words, but in "thought experiments". What was the result of all his thinking? Nothing less than the overturning of Newtonian physics. Once again, Kathleen Krull delivers a witty and astute look at one of the true giants of science and the turbulent times in which he lived.

This book explores the world of Sigmund Freud, who, making it into the author's highly popular series due to his creation of a brand-new branch of medicine called psychoanalysis, introduced the world to such controversial theories as Oedipal complexes, the id, and the ego.

What was Isaac Newton like? Secretive, vindictive, withdrawn, obsessive, and oh, yes, brilliant. His imagination was so large that, just “by thinking on it”, he invented calculus and figured out the scientific explanation of gravity. Yet Newton was so small-minded that he set out to destroy other scientists who dared question his findings. This compelling portrait of Newton, contradictions and all, places him against the backdrop of 17th-century England, a time of plague, the Great Fire of London, and two revolutions.

Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks are mind-boggling evidence of a 15th-century scientific genius standing at the edge of the modern world, basing his ideas on observation and experimentation. This book will change children’s ideas of who Leonardo was and what it means to be a scientist.