
The Things We Make
The Unknown History of Invention from Cathedrals to Soda Cans
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Narrated by:
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Jonathan Todd Ross
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By:
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Bill Hammack
About this listen
Discover the secret method used to build the world . . .
For millennia, humans have used one simple method to solve problems. Whether it's planting crops, building skyscrapers, developing photographs, or designing the first microchip, all creators follow the same steps to engineer progress. But this powerful method, the "engineering method", is an all but hidden process that few of us have heard of—let alone understand—but that influences every aspect of our lives.
Bill Hammack, a Carl Sagan Award-winning professor of engineering and viral "The Engineer Guy" on YouTube, has a lifelong passion for the things we make, and how we make them. Now, for the first time, he reveals the invisible method behind every invention and takes us on a whirlwind tour of how humans built the world we know today. From the grand stone arches of medieval cathedrals to the mundane modern soda can, Hammack explains the golden rule of thumb that underlies every new building technique, every technological advancement, and every creative solution that leads us one step closer to a better, more functional world. Spanning centuries and cultures, Hammack offers a fascinating perspective on how humans engineer solutions in a world full of problems.
©2023 Bill Hammack (P)2023 HighBridge, a division of Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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Audiobook Version is the Best!
- By semarla on 01-31-21
By: Simon Winchester
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Inventor of the Future
- The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller
- By: Alec Nevala-Lee
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 18 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
During his lifetime, Buckminster Fuller was hailed as one of the greatest geniuses of the twentieth century. As the architectural designer and futurist best known for the geodesic dome, he enthralled a vast popular audience, inspired devotion from both the counterculture and the establishment, and was praised as a modern Leonardo da Vinci. To his admirers, he exemplified what one man could accomplish by approaching urgent design problems using a radically unconventional set of strategies, which he based on a mystical conception of the universe’s geometry.
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I learned much about Buckminster Fuller!
- By Richard J. Chandler on 09-12-22
By: Alec Nevala-Lee
Excellent job
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Lots of good information, and lots of really wierd virtue signaling
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Very interesting book about the engineering method
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Great topic, ok execution
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A clear and valuable story
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Hard start, but good overall
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A book written to appease his scools DEI dept?
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I would like to see an editor remove some chunks of it. As an example at the end he claims to end the book and starts with some kind of summary, but decide to tell a rather long story about the microwave oven. That story is interesting by itself but it’s not part of an ending nor a summary… and its message has already been told when discussing the light bulb. I.e there are no one genius, only good marketing stories that obscures understanding of true development.
The important thing that is obscured by the non existing editorial work is visible in the European triple helix thinking, and is utterly wrong - universities discover something, and then they tell companies about it, companies develop products. Repeat. It just doesn’t work like that. I would really like a shorter and edited book to throw onto the politicians here in Europe :-)
Then we have the issue of woke. Universities must tell stories about female engineers to get funded, but I think it should be done in another way. How does the satellite story fit with “the engineering method”? if that’s what the book is about? Rule of thumb? To me it’s just another story about the lone genius that is not understood until after his death (like Tesla!) which is the opposite of what the book is about. I would really like an editor to go through everything and sort out these things and kill some darlings.
I would have recommended the book to a lot of people, since the message is important - science is not engineering is not science.
But now I’m beg for an edited version first…
Could have been so much better
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I happened to see the Microwave Oven Magnetron video before listening to the book. When I got to that chapter, I could see the manufacturing solution as it was explained in the text. Excellent!
Solutions before Truth
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Good book.
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