The Pinball Effect: How Renaissance Water Gardens Made the Carburetor Possible - and Other Journeys - Softcover

Burke, James

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0316116106 ISBN 13: 9780316116107

Publisher: Little, Brown, 1997

Synopsis

Using 100s of fascinating examples, James Burke shows how old established ideas in science and technology often lead to serendipitous and amazing modern discoveries and innovations.

About this title

Review:

Follow the bouncing ball, James Burke-style: spice trading in the Middle Ages leads to the European tea-drinking craze, which helps instigate the development of the science of natural history, which in turns inspires the creation of the coal miner's safety lamp, which is somehow related to the battle between the Monitor and the Merrimack. From there we go to North Carolina cotton industry, Thomas Edison's very first electric power station, air conditioning, glass manufacturing, and laser beams. The end result? The smart bombs used during the Gulf War. Burke, who wrote Connections (the book and the television show), revels--or better, wallows--in the accidental nature of the march of discovery. Despite a penchant for playing it loose and free with scientific and historical accuracy, Burke has compiled a fascinating look at the great matrix of change and transformation that humans have created for themselves.

From the Back Cover:

The Pinball Effect takes the reader on many different journeys through the web of knowledge. Knowledge, it turns out, has many unforeseen and surprising effects. The book, for instance, owes its existence to German jeweler Johannes Gutenberg's getting the date wrong one day in the fifteenth century. James Burke, author and host of the highly rated documentary series Connections 2, draws upon years of research to examine the intrigues and surprises on the journey through knowledge, a trip with all the twists and turns of a detective story. Ultimately, the larger picture that emerges has far-reaching and important implications for the future, revealing why the fundamental mechanism of change is the way things come together and connect. To add to the excitement, The Pinball Effect has been designed to be read interactively: throughout the book, cross-chapter references mimic computer hypertext "hot links" and allow readers to leap from one chapter to another. The result is a fascinating tour through history's most dramatic innovations.

About this edition

• Publisher: Little, Brown
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0316116106
• ISBN 13: 9780316116107
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336