Genius and breakthroughs appear to involve something magical. Andrew Robinson looks at what science does, and does not, know about exceptional creativity, and applied it to the stories of ten breakthroughs in the arts and sciences, including Curie's discovery of radium and Mozart's composing of The Marriage of Figaro.
No one has given the polymath Thomas Young (1773–1829) the all-round examination he so richly deserves—until now. Celebrated biographer Andrew Robinson portrays a man who solved mystery after mystery in the face of ridicule and rejection, and never sought fame. As a physicist, Young challenged the theories of Isaac Newton and proved that light is a wave. As a physician, he showed how the eye focuses and proposed the three-colour theory of vision, only confirmed a century and a half later. As an Egyptologist, he made crucial contributions to deciphering the Rosetta Stone. It is hard to grasp how much Young knew. This biography is the fascinating story of a driven yet modest hero who cared less about what others thought of him than for the joys of an unbridled pursuit of knowledge—with a new foreword by Martin Rees and a new postscript discussing polymathy in the two centuries since the time of Young. It returns this neglected genius to his proper position in the pantheon of great scientific thinkers.
A "highly readable" account of the role Britain played in Einstein's life—by inspiring his teenage passion for physics and providing refuge from the Nazis (The Wall Street Journal). In late 1933, Albert Einstein found himself living alone in an isolated holiday hut in rural England. There, he toiled peacefully at mathematics, occasionally stepping out for walks or to play his violin. But how had Einstein come to abandon his Berlin home and go “on the run”? This lively account tells the story of the world’s greatest scientist’s time in Britain for the first time, showing why the country was the perfect refuge for Einstein from rumored assassination plots by Nazi agents. Young Einstein’s passion for British physics, epitomized by Newton, had sparked his scientific development around 1900. British astronomers had confirmed his general theory of relativity, making him internationally famous in 1919. Welcomed by the British people, who helped him campaign against Nazi anti-Semitism, he even intended to become a British citizen. So why did Einstein then leave Britain, never to return to Europe? “A vivid look at how the U.K. affected the German-born physicist’s life and thinking.” —Publishers Weekly “A marvelous job of pulling new and interesting material out of the Einstein archives . . . I suspect that even readers who have devoured many books about Einstein and are already familiar with his interactions with the English . . . will find much to learn and enjoy.” —Metascience Journal “Robinson has that rare knack for presenting a near-encyclopedic volume of historical information, anecdotes and contemporaneous accounts in a thoroughly delightful fashion.” —Physics World Includes photographs and illustrations
Homer, Leonardo da Vinci, Mozart, Shakespeare, and Tolstoy; Curie, Darwin, Einstein, Galileo, and Newton. What do these world-famous artists and scientists have in common?- apart from the fact that their achievements predate our own time by a century or more. Most of us would probably answer: all ten possessed something we call genius, which in each instance permanently changed the way that humanity perceived the world. But pressed to be more precise, we find it remarkably hard to define genius. Genius is highly individual and unique, of course, yet it shares a compelling, inevitable quality for professionals and the general public alike. Darwin's ideas are still required reading for every working biologist; they continue to generate fresh thinking and experiments around the world. So do Einstein's theories among physicists. Shakespeare's plays and Mozart's melodies and harmonies continue to move people in languages and cultures far removed from their native England and Austria. Contemporary 'geniuses' may come and go, but the idea of genius will not let go of us. Genius is the name we give to a quality of work that transcends fashion, celebrity, fame, and reputation: the opposite of a period piece. Somehow, genius abolishes both the time and the place of its origin. This Very Short Introduction uses the life and work of familiar geniuses-and some less familiar-to illuminate both the individual and the general aspects of genius. In particular: the roles of talent, heredity, parenting, education, training, hard work, intelligence, personality, mental illness, inspiration, eureka moments, and luck, in the making of genius. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Without writing, there would be no records, no history, no books, and no emails. Writing is an integral and essential part of our lives; but when did it start? Why do we all write differently and how did writing develop into what we use today? All of these questions are answered in this Very Short Introduction. Starting with the origins of writing five thousand years ago, with cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs, Andrew Robinson explains how these early forms of writing developed into hundreds of scripts including the Roman alphabet and the Chinese characters. He reveals how the modern writing symbols and abbreviations we take for granted today - including airport signage and text messaging - resemble ancient ones much more closely than we might think. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Tailor, soldier, spy ... the enigmatic Garak, Cardassian-in-exile on space station Deep Space Nine, established himself rapidly - thanks largely to his superb portrayal by actor (and now author) Andrew Robinson - as one of the best-loved characters on Star Trek DS9. Garak refers to himself as 'just a simple tailor' - but everyone knows that there's more to him than that. Ex-member of the Cardassian invasion forces; ex-member of the Obsidian Order, the dreaded Cardassian secret police; cynic, wit, epicure, man of mystery: - why WAS he banished from his home planet, and why does he choose to spend his exile on Deep Space Nine? Andrew Robinson, to whom Garak's voice comes as readily as his own, spins an enthralling, twisting yarn in true inimitable Garak style.
The 2011 devastating, tsunami-triggering quake off the coast of Japan and 2010’s horrifying destruction in Haiti reinforce the fact that large cities in every continent are at risk from earthquakes. Quakes threaten Los Angeles, Beijing, Cairo, Delhi, Singapore, and many more cities, and despite advances in earthquake science and engineering and improved disaster preparedness by governments and international aid agencies, they continue to cause immense loss of life and property damage. Earthquake explores the occurrence of major earthquakes around the world, their effects on the societies where they strike, and the other catastrophes they cause, from landslides and fires to floods and tsunamis. Examining the science involved in measuring and explaining earthquakes, Andrew Robinson looks at our attempts to design against their consequences and the possibility of having the ability to predict them one day. Robinson also delves into the ways nations have mythologized earthquakes through religion and the arts—Norse mythology explained earthquakes as the violent struggling of the god Loki as he was punished for murdering another god, the ancient Greeks believed Poseidon caused earthquakes whenever he was in a bad mood or wanted to punish people, and Japanese mythology states that Namazu, a giant catfish, triggers quakes when he thrashes around. He discusses the portrayal of earthquakes in popular culture, where authors and filmmakers often use the memory of cities laid to waste—such as Kobe, Japan, in 1995 or San Francisco in 1906—or imagine the hypothetical “Big One,” the earthquake expected someday out of California’s San Andreas Fault. With tremors happening in seemingly implausible places like Chicago and Washington DC, Earthquake is a timely book that will enrich earthquake scholarship and enlighten anyone interested in these ruinous natural disasters.
The connections between race and sexuality are constant in our lives, yet they are not often linked together in productive, analytical ways. This illuminating book delves into the interrelation of race and sexuality as inseparable elements of our identities and social lives. The authors approach the topic through an interdisciplinary lens, focusing on power, social arrangements and hierarchies, and the production of social difference. Their analysis maps the historical, discursive, and structural manifestations of race and sexuality, noting the everyday effects that the intersections of these categories have on people’s lived experiences. Considering both US-based and transnational cases, this book presents an empirical grounding for understanding how race and sexuality are mutually constitutive categories. Providing a comprehensive overview of racialized sexualities, this book is an essential text for any advanced course on race, sexuality, and intersectionality.
Did the 19th century German mathematician Bernhard Riemann discover more about the intricacies of prime numbers than he published? Did a notebook survive the clear-out of his papers following his sudden death in Italy? Could this notebook enable the breaking of 21st century internet security?
As the book explains clearly, Einstein's dramatic papers of 1905 overthrew the Newtonian worldview and revolutionized our understanding of space, time, energy, matter, and light. His work had impact far beyond the field of physics, playing a leading role in the century's technological advances and influencing modernism in every field. Except for his last interview that was previously published, all the essays here are original works written especially for this book. The photographs draw on an exceptional archive Einstein bequeathed to Hebrew University in Jerusalem. --Provided by the publisher.
Drawing on the philosophy of C. S. Peirce, Robinson develops a ‘semiotic model’ of the Trinity and proposes a new theology of nature according to which the evolving cosmos may be understood as bearing ‘vestiges of the Trinity in creation’.
I can never forget the excitement in my mind after seeing 'Pather Panchali'", noted Akira Kurosawa. Satyajit Ray's three films about the boyhood, adolescence and manhood of Apu, Pather Panchali (1955), Aparajito (1956) and The World of Apu (1959) - collectively known as The Apu Trilogy - are established classics of world cinema. The Trilogy was the chief reason for Satyajit Ray's receiving an Academy Award for lifetime achievement in 1992, just before his death. This book by Ray's biographer and world authority Andrew Robinson is the first full study of the Trilogy. Robinson - who came to know the director well during the last decade of his career - covers the literary and cultural background to the films, their production, their music composed by Ravi Shankar, their aesthetic value, and their complex critical reception in the East and the West, from 1955 up to the present day. Extensively and beautifully illustrated and a pleasure to read, The Apu Trilogy will appeal to anyone captivated by the unique world created by Satyajit Ray.
The essential argument of this new work by Andrew Robinson is that we live, move and have our being within a sea of signs, but that we are largely unaware of this for most of the time. When the structure of these signs is analysed it turns out to rest onthree recurring 'elemental grounds', which the author calls Quality, Otherness and Mediation. The kaleidoscopic, ramifying patterns of Quality, Otherness and Meditation which underpin representations and interpretations at every level and dimension of the processes of signification offer a model of the dynamic mutual indwelling of the Father, Son and Spirit within the eternal life of the Trinity. This 'semiotic model' of the Trinity would be of rather limited interest in itself unless it can also illuminate other areas of Christian theology. Robinson suggests that the model leads to a helpful way of understanding how the entirely human person Jesus of Nazareth may be understood to have been the full and perfect embodiment (representation) of the quality of God's being. This in turn helps us to understand how the processes of representation and interpretation enable us to be drawn into the very life of God. This has practical implications for the church and for the individual lives of Christian believers.It also offers, via a re-articulation of the neglected concept of vestiges of the Trinity in creation, a form of 'spirituality of the everyday'.
In 1799 Napoleon's army uncovered an ancient stele in the Nile delta. Its inscription, recorded in three distinct scripts--ancient Greek, Coptic, and hieroglyphic--would provide scholars with the first clues to unlocking the secrets of Egyptian hieroglyphs, a language lost for nearly two millennia. More than twenty years later a remarkably gifted Frenchman named Jean-Francois Champollion successfully deciphered the hieroglyphs on the stele, now commonly known as the Rosetta Stone, sparking a revolution in our knowledge of ancient Egypt. Cracking the Egyptian Code is the first biography in English of Champollion, widely regarded as the founder of Egyptology. Andrew Robinson meticulously reconstructs how Champollion cracked the code of the hieroglyphic script, describing how Champollion started with Egyptian obelisks in Rome and papyri in European collections, sailed the Nile for a year, studied the tombs in the Valley of the Kings (a name he first coined), and carefully compared the three scripts on the Rosetta Stone to penetrate the mystery of the hieroglyphic text. Robinson also brings to life the rivalry between Champollion and the English scientist Thomas Young, who claimed credit for launching the decipherment, which Champollion hotly denied. There is much more to Champollion's life than the Rosetta Stone and Robinson gives equal weight to the many roles he played in his tragically brief life, from a teenage professor in Revolutionary France to a supporter of Napoleon (whom he met), an exile, and a curator at the Louvre. Extensively illustrated in color and black-and-white pictures, Cracking the Egyptian Code will appeal to a wide readership interested in Egypt, decipherment and code-breaking, and Napoleon and the French Revolution.
An unique and intense tale following Elim Garak as he attempts to stitch the ravaged society of Cardassia back together. For nearly a decade Garak has longed for just one thing—to go home. Exiled on a space station, surrounded by aliens who loathe and distrust him, going back to Cardassia has been Garak's one dream. Now, finally, he is home. But home is a world whose landscape is filled with death and destruction. Desperation and dust are constant companions and luxury is a glass of clean water and a warm place to sleep. Ironically, it is a letter from one of the aliens on that space station, Dr. Julian Bashir, that inspires Garak to look at the fabric of his life. Elim Garak has been a student, a gardener, a spy, an exile, a tailor, even a liberator. It is a life that was charted by the forces of Cardassian society with very little understanding of the person, and even less compassion. But it is the tailor that understands who Elim Garak was, and what he could be. It is the tailor who sees the ruined fabric of Cardassia, and who knows how to bring this ravaged society back together. This is strange, because a tailor is the one thing Garak never wanted to be. But it is the tailor whom both Cardassia and Elim Garak need. It is the tailor who can put the pieces together, who can take a stitch in time.
“Highly readable . . . a fitting tribute to the quiet outsider who taught the professionals their business and increased our knowledge of the human past.”—Archaeology Odyssey More than a century ago, in 1900, one of the great archaeological finds of all time was made in Crete. Arthur Evans discovered what he believed was the palace of King Minos, with its notorious labyrinth, home of the Minotaur. As a result, Evans became obsessed with one of the epic intellectual stories of the modern era: the search for the meaning of Linear B, the mysterious script found on clay tablets in the ruined palace. Evans died without achieving his objective, and it was left to the enigmatic Michael Ventris to crack the code in 1952. This is the first book to tell not just the story of Linear B but also that of the young man who deciphered it. Based on hundreds of unpublished letters, interviews with survivors, and other primary sources, Andrew Robinson’s riveting account takes the reader through the life of this intriguing and contradictory man. Stage by stage, we see how Ventris finally achieved the breakthrough that revealed Linear B as the earliest comprehensible European writing system.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.