A Short Bright Flash
Augustin Fresnel and the Birth of the Modern Lighthouse
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Narrated by:
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Teri Clark Linden
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By:
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Theresa Levitt
About this listen
How a scientific outsider came up with a revolutionary theory of light and saved untold numbers of lives.
Augustin Fresnel (1788–1827) shocked the scientific elite with his unique understanding of the physics of light. The lens he invented was a brilliant feat of engineering that made lighthouses blaze many times brighter, farther, and more efficiently. Battling the establishment, his own poor health, and the limited technology of the time, Fresnel was able to achieve his goal of illuminating the entire French coast. At first, the British sought to outdo the new Fresnel-equipped lighthouses as a matter of national pride. Americans, too, resisted abandoning their primitive lamps, but the superiority of the Fresnel lens could not bedenied for long.
Soon, from Dunkirk to Saigon, shores were brightened with the Fresnel lens. The Fresnel legacy played an important role in geopolitical events, including the American Civil War. No sooner were Fresnel lenses finally installed along U.S. shores than they were drafted: the Union blockaded the Confederate coast; the Confederacy set about thwarting it by dismantling and hiding or destroying the powerful new lights.
Levitt’s scientific and historical account, rich in anecdote and personality, brings to life the fascinating untold story of Augustin Fresnel and his powerful invention.
©2013 Theresa Levitt (P)2013 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Story
On June 6, 1761, the world paused to observe a momentous occasion: the first transit of Venus between the earth and the sun in more than a century. Through that observation, astronomers could calculate the size of the solar system - but only if they could compile data from many different points of the globe, all recorded during the short period of the transit. Fortunately, transits of Venus occur in pairs: eight years later, the scientists would have another opportunity to succeed.
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Fascinating history, beautifully told
- By GC1 on 04-26-16
By: Andrea Wulf
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Admiral Hyman Rickover
- Engineer of Power (The Jewish Lives Series)
- By: Marc Wortman
- Narrated by: Paul Bellantoni
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Admiral Hyman George Rickover (1899-1986) remains an almost mythical figure in the United States Navy. A brilliant engineer with a ferocious will and combative personality, he oversaw the invention of the world’s first practical nuclear power reactor. In this exciting biography, historian Marc Wortman explores the constant conflict Rickover faced and provoked, tracing how he revolutionized the navy and Cold War strategy.
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Rickover - No Compromises
- By Brustar on 07-18-22
By: Marc Wortman
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Tuxedo Park
- A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II
- By: Jennet Conant
- Narrated by: John Kroft
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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In the late 1930s, legendary financier, philanthropist, and society figure Alfred Lee Loomis gathered the most visionary scientific minds of the 20th century at his state-of-the-art laboratory in Tuxedo Park, New York. He established a top-secret defense laboratory at MIT and personally bankrolled pioneering research into new, high-powered radar detection systems that helped defeat the German Air Force and U-boats. With Ernest Lawrence, he pushed Franklin Delano Roosevelt to fund research in nuclear fission, which led to the development of the atomic bomb.
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Fantastic book, weak technical execution
- By Paul on 10-13-18
By: Jennet Conant
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The Making of the Atomic Bomb
- 25th Anniversary Edition
- By: Richard Rhodes
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 37 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Here for the first time, in rich human, political, and scientific detail, is the complete story of how the bomb was developed, from the turn-of-the-century discovery of the vast energy locked inside the atom to the dropping of the first bombs on Japan. Few great discoveries have evolved so swiftly - or have been so misunderstood. From the theoretical discussions of nuclear energy to the bright glare of Trinity, there was a span of hardly more than 25 years.
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Beware limitations of the reader
- By JFanson on 01-01-19
By: Richard Rhodes
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Breaking Rockefeller
- The Incredible Story of the Ambitious Rivals Who Toppled an Oil Empire
- By: Peter B. Doran
- Narrated by: Peter B. Doran
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Marcus Samuel, Jr., is an unorthodox Jewish merchant trader. Henri Deterding is a take-no-prisoners oilman. In 1889 John D. Rockefeller is at the peak of his power. Having annihilated all competition and possessing near-total domination of the market, even the US government is wary of challenging the great "anaconda" of Standard Oil. The Standard never loses - that is, until Samuel and Deterding team up to form Royal Dutch Shell.
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Tale of business, cultures, dances as it teaches
- By Philo on 05-25-16
By: Peter B. Doran
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American Eclipse
- A Nation's Epic Race to Catch the Shadow of the Moon and Win the Glory of the World
- By: David Baron
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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In the scorching summer of 1878, with the Gilded Age in its infancy, three tenacious and brilliant scientists raced to Wyoming and Colorado to observe a rare total solar eclipse. One sought to discover a new planet. Another - an adventuresome female astronomer - fought to prove that science was not anathema to femininity. And a young megalomaniacal inventor, with the tabloid press fast on his heels, sought to test his scientific bona fides and light the world through his revelations.
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Just OK.
- By Melanie A Hwalek on 09-18-17
By: David Baron
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Pacific
- Silicon Chips and Surfboards, Coral Reefs and Atom Bombs, Brutal Dictators, Fading Empires, and the Coming Collision of the World's Superpowers
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 14 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Best-selling author Simon Winchester offers an enthralling biography of the Pacific Ocean and its role in the modern world, exploring our relationship with this imposing force of nature. Winchester's personal experience is vast and his storytelling second to none. And his historical understanding of the region is formidable, making Pacific a paean to this magnificent sea of beauty, myth, and imagination that is transforming our lives.
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Political Asides Have Become Bombastic Didactic
- By Mark Patterson on 12-25-15
By: Simon Winchester
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Blackett's War
- The Men Who Defeated the Nazi U-boats and Brought Science to the Art of Warfare
- By: Stephen Budiansky
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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In March 1941, after a year of unbroken and devastating U-boat onslaughts, the British War Cabinet decided to try a new strategy in the foundering naval campaign. To do so, they hired an intensely private, bohemian physicist who was also an ardent socialist. Patrick Blackett was a former navy officer and future winner of the Nobel Prize; he is little remembered today, but he and his fellow scientists did as much to win the war against Nazi Germany as almost anyone else.
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First time science used to fight a war
- By Jean on 08-20-14
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The Dawn of Innovation
- The First American Industrial Revolution
- By: Charles R. Morris
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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In the 30 years after the Civil War, the United States blew by Great Britain to become the greatest economic power in world history. That is a well-known period in history, when titans like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and J. P. Morgan walked the earth. But as Charles R. Morris shows us, the platform for that spectacular growth spurt was built in the first half of the century. By the 1820s, America was already the world's most productive manufacturer and the most intensely commercialized society in history.
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How our industries started
- By Jean on 02-22-13
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The Victorian Internet
- The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers
- By: Tom Standage
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 5 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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The Victorian Internet tells the colorful story of the telegraph's creation and remarkable impact and of the visionaries, oddballs, and eccentrics who pioneered it, from eighteenth-century French scientist Jean-Antoine Nollet to Samuel F. B. Morse and Thomas Edison. The electric telegraph nullified distance and shrank the world quicker and further than ever before or since, and its story mirrors and predicts that of the Internet in numerous ways.
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Very nice audiobook
- By David on 05-23-16
By: Tom Standage
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The Great Bridge
- The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 27 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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This monumental book tells the enthralling story of one of the greatest accomplishments in our nation's history, the building of what was then the longest suspension bridge in the world. The Brooklyn Bridge rose out of the expansive era following the Civil War, when Americans believed all things were possible.
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An Historian and not a Novelist
- By Tim on 06-01-12
By: David McCullough
What listeners say about A Short Bright Flash
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Elliott
- 03-06-24
A Short Bright flash
Well written. I enjoyed the history. The French pronunciation was impressive. Very interesting that light was thought to only be a particle and not a wave length at first.
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- Jeffrey E. Platt
- 06-01-17
illuminating history
If you could sum up A Short Bright Flash in three words, what would they be?
that three words is not enough.
1)connections.
2)saving - lives
3)working - together
What other book might you compare A Short Bright Flash to and why?
i am young and just catching up on my reading. this book stands alone.
Have you listened to any of Teri Clark Linden’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
no i have not. but i did enjoy her rendition.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
this book is on science. i am emotional about science. i love science.
Any additional comments?
not realy ...
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- catriona
- 04-10-20
may be worth reading, skip as audiobook
the narration almost completely ruined this book for me. Flat and dry with emphasis on many of the wrong places.
simple words misread when they made zero contextual sense. example: preserve instead of persevere.
the French pronunciations may have been correct, bit they felt forced and exoticized. The English and Scottish place names were butchered.
The story itself was good and interesting, if a little belaboured at times.
I persevered (not preserved!) with it because of a childhood awe of lighthouse lenses.
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1 person found this helpful