It All Started with the Wheel. The Evolution of Inventions: from Axe to Laser

Are brilliant inventions the result of random insights or long painstaking work? Sometimes remarkable things arise simply from the desire to help contemporaries. With this book, you will journey through a series of eras, from stone tools to humanoid robots,... from the cradle of humanity in Africa to the epicenter of digital technology in California. Your companions will include Archimedes, Ibn al-Haytham, Leonardo da Vinci, Alfred Nobel, Mikhail Kalashnikov, and Steve Jobs. You will learn how people lived without clocks and what temperature the first thermometer measured. Why is the Ada83 programming language named after the poet Byron's daughter, and when will we finally be able to wear clothes made from spray and talk to our pets through a translator? Denis Gutleben's fascinating, slightly ironic stories about inventors and inventions will introduce you to unexpected historical facts and allow you to look at the things we use today in a new light, without thinking about them.