Electric Universe: The Shocking True Story of Electricity Review

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(More customer reviews)+++++
In this book author and former professor David Bodanis presents "the shocking true story of electricity." Actually this book is more about electrical devices through history and the scientists who created them. The electrical devices investigated are as follows: telegraph, telephone, light bulb, electric motor, radio, radar, and computer. Even human biological devices are looked into-specifically the nervous system and brain. Bodanis says this more eloquently:
"The world is made of electric charges and our technologies operate through electric charges, and even our brains are powered by electric charges."
The author does present some of the science behind electricity. (Electricity is a general term used for all phenomena caused by electric charge.) But he seems to concentrate only on DC or Direct Current (a term he never uses). (Direct Current is electric charge always flowing in the same direction.) Nothing (not one word!!) is said about the more important AC or Alternating Current and its colorful scientific history. This I feel was a major, major oversight. (Alternating Current is a flow of electric charge that periodically reverses its direction.)
Chapter 1 to chapter 6 of this 12-chapter book presents the scientific history of direct current. I feel Bodanis does a decent job here with his explanations and portraits of major scientists. In fact, I feel that his writing style is very engaging throughout the book.
The next two chapters discuss radar. Unfortunately, the author goes into way too much detail about the war effort and strays significantly off topic. I feel all this information was not needed.
Chapter 9 and chapter 10 discuss the idea of a "thinking machine" (what we now call the computer) and the man behind this revolutionary idea. As well, this man's legacy is explained. This information is well presented.
The last two chapters look into human biology. Here we learn that "our entire body operates by electricity." I found this information very interesting but felt that most of it was not relevant to the theme of the book.
There are two more brief sections at the end of this book. They are entitled as follows:
(1) "What happened next." This section profiles what happened to the major people mentioned in this book. Some of these people include Samuel Morse, Alexander G. Bell, Edison, Faraday, Hertz, and Turing. I found this section interesting.
(2) "Mr. Amp, Mr. Volt, and Mr. Watt." These units (amp, volt and watt) describe, according to Bodanis, "what's happening inside all...electric devices." What happened to Mr. Ohm? An ohm is a measure of electrical resistance. I thought not mentioning this unit was a major oversight.
Finally, there are no illustrations in this book. I felt simple diagrams would have reduced the book's wordiness. As well, pictures of some of the major people mentioned would have been nice.
In conclusion, this is a well-written book about electricity that has some major oversights and that, in some cases, presents irrelevant information.
(first published 2005; introduction; 6 parts or 12 chapters; 2 concluding sections; main narrative 235 pages; notes; further reading; acknowledgements; index)
+++++


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Saving Planet Earth - A Practical Hands On Approach Review

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(More customer reviews)Kent has offered some hard to find circuit diagrams on the Sweet system! As well as many other of the OU coil configurations. This book is excellent for anyone wanting a fast introduction into the world of alternate energy and does not want to spend hours searching the net for it. Contains info that must have taken years to accumulate.
Also a nice flow from the past to the future, and covering some of the old classic Tesla hard to find inormation to the Bendini layouts. Was a joy to read through it. I rate it a keeper!

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Power Generation Technologies Review

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(More customer reviews)This is a 288 pages book, so this book does not go into details. And that is exactly what you found here, an introduction to every form of power generation in use or known today, good explanations about the technology behind, what are their risks and costs. I would certainly recommend this book, especially to those who believe that with only renewable and "clean" energy, the world and its almost 7 billions souls can be supplied in a cost-efficient manner, to those who still believe in myths and legends or simply to those who under their ignorance still believe that radioactive waste can cause a nuclear explosion. These are the facts and the hard true is that, no matter what, coal, gas, oil and even uranium will be consumed and depleted from earth. To think otherwise is to not know about energy and to deny reality. I hope we can find a good substitute, but what we know today is that to get energy you need energy. There is not such thing as free energy, nothing is free even in life.

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Where Discovery Sparks Imagination: A Pictorial History of Radio and Electricity Review

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(More customer reviews)I'm not into reviewing. I've bought many books from Amazon over the years, ranging from worthy-of-a-book-award down to boring. But this is the first time I feel like writing a review. This book is a must for any collector of anything electrical. It is spectacular in every respect. A readable balance of clear but authoritative text and a huge number of magnificent photographs, most in color, of real antique electrical items, many of them very rare, on heavy glossy paper. The main sections are:
The Dawn of the Electrical Age: Very early artifacts of electricity and magnetism.
Electricity Sparks Invention: From Galvani in 1780 to Faraday in 1831 to Morse in 1837 to Alexander Graham Bell in 1875 to Edison and Tesla in the eighteen-seventies and beyond, with great heavily illustrated sections on incendescent lighting, electric motors, electrical measuring instruments, the telegraph, the telephone, and even many electro-therapeutic quackery devices such as the electro-magnetic hairbrush and the bi-polar electric belt with suspensory pouch (I presume for men).
The Wireless Age: Again heavily illustrated, with sections on the electromagnetic spectrum, the discovery of radio waves, early detection of radio waves, Marconi and his many early wireless devices, vacuum tubes, and early radio including military radio in World War One.
Radio Enters the Home: With a huge number of illustrations of radios from the 1920s and 1930s.
The Golden Age of Radio: With an equally huge number of illustrations of radios from the 1930s and 1940s.
The Jones Gallery: About vacuum tubes, ranging from early ones to the one used on the Lunar Orbiter III to photograph the dark side of the moon in 1968.
All profits go to the American Museum of Radio and Electricity, a non-profit organization. I hope I've convinced you to click on the "ADD TO CART" button and then the "PLACE YOUR ORDER" button.
Full disclosure: I'm an avid collector of some items of early incandescent lighting and original documentation about them, and I like to think that I'm somewhat of a historian of some aspects of very early electric incandescent lighting. In that connection, I've corresponded with the author on occasion and we have exchanged some information, but I have no involvement with the American Museum of Radio and Electricity or any other organization of the author.

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In Where Discovery Sparks Imagination, Jenkins examines the early history of electricity and radio, presented via a marvelous collection of over 600 stunning photographs of actual apparatus, many of which have never before been published. Beginning with the rise of electricity in the 17th century, the book follows a continuous thread of discovery and invention through electric motors, electric light, the telegraph, telephone and ultimately radio. Anyone who appreciates the amazing workmanship and artistry of old technology will love this book!

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There Are No Electrons: Electronics for Earthlings Review

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(More customer reviews)I just recently finished reading this book. The motivation for reading this book was, ofcourse, to learn electronics, both analog and digital, and to ultimately be able to build out ideas that I have floating in my head for the last several years.
The cover of this book caught my eye, and flipping through the pages, I could tell the book was definitely not dry. But was it good? I looked up some of the reviews and all of them were positive from some more reputable sources: National Public Radio/ Car Audio and Electronics / Science News / Radio Electronics Magazine. So I decided to purchase the book.
This book introduces basic concepts of eletronics by use of analogies; imagery of little green men, chickens, and magicians to get his points across. Amdahl was impressed that his children could comprehend the entire Star Wars universe after watching the movie for 2 hours, and he figures he could do the same with electronics.
Usually the format goes, introduce a theory with the usual electron jargon, translate the jargon into a story about Greenies who want to party. Repeat a few times, then review the last few sections with a story about Greenies and electron jargon.
The concepts learned are pretty basic. It doesn't get into much detail, or formulas except for the two basic ones where a component is in series versus in parallel. Semi-conductors are covered.
The stories themselves are somewhat entertaining. And they help you *some what* remember the concepts you learned. Amdahl has borrowed a concept used by mnemonics.
However, the stories can be quite long. Some sections have five pages worth of stories to go through, and none of it has to do with electronics, or analogies. Just pure entertainment. I'd rather he just make analogies, and keep the narrative to the minimal. Remember, the more unusual, the better remembered, and to have a long narrative in a story helps make the bizarre imagery rational, thus losing it unusualness.
The stories themselves with the electronics makes this book -for me- worth 3 stars. What makes this book worth five stars is the following.
The book got me over my 'procrastination' hump and into learning electronics. I also liked the analogies and at times Amdahl pretty much comes out and says there are no really good analogies to electronics and everyday life. You'd be foolish to think that the dry textbooks know it all, and he gives some examples of how explanations in textbooks don't really make sense.
That's a big thing, because having forgotten the electronics I learned in highschool, I do remember knowing the rules and how to apply them, but feeling quite anxious about not understanding. which I felt hindered my remembering the subject. Remember, whatever the textbooks or physicists come up with, it is only a model of reality, a mental construct, which just so happens to be the best at the time, but can change.
I also liked the homemade gadgetry he introduces to people which I see lacking in many textbooks on the subject.
The repetitive nature of the concepts introduced along with regular 'review stories' helped to remember important concepts.
Finally, and most important of all, I like the inventive spirit the book seems to have. Kenn Amdahl manages to cultivate your imagination, definitely not something you'd find in other textbooks.
So the negatives of the book. I mentioned one. The stories could be too long at times. The imagery is not 'continuous' first it was green men, then chickens and ducks. The other major problem is that there is no index at the end of the book. There were a few times I wanted to look up a term, but couldn't remember where in the book I read it first.
For those that are impatient and need to learn electron theory fast, I don't recommend this book. It's not detailed enough and the jargon and concepts are not introduced fast enough. But if you are not in this category, this is a great book to start.
(Right now, I am reading as my second book 'electricity: a self teaching guide by Ralph Morrison. It's a good book so far.)

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The Diamond of Darkhold (Ember, Book 4) Review

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(More customer reviews)There are few books that I give this low of a rating. I almost hate doing this because I loved the first two books so much, but there are three reasons I'm giving this book only two stars.
The first is it felt like the book was talking down to its young audience. The first two books were so contemporary and edgy, but it felt like this one spent half the time defining big words and inserting placeholder dialogue. The writing style lacked a quality I know Duprau is capable of.
The second is that the book is a rewind of The City of Ember (Books of Ember). It seemed like the characters hadn't really developed since the first book and had to learn all the old lessons over again. Plus it just played the same plot tricks as the first book, only instead of escaping Ember, Lina and Doon are going back. And it totally ignores all of the information from The Prophet of Yonwood (Books of Ember) (which wasn't that good to begin with) until the last ten pages--and even that tie-in seems forced, like it's an afterthought.
The final thing that made this book just not work for me is that the ending is moral driven rather than character driven. Instead of letting the characters' actions speak for themselves, there is a LONG epilogue that tells word for word all the lessons Lina and Doon learned. After all they go through together, the reader should be able to tell what lessons were learned without it being spelled out for them--literally!
This book could have been hot with all the potential in the first two books. The premiss for this one is fantastic and the already-established characters are amazing, but this book just doesn't pull it all together in the end. I wish the series would have ended after The People of Sparks (Books of Ember).

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