Creating the Twentieth Century
The period between 1867 and 1914 remains the greatest watershed in human history since the emergence of settled agricultural societies: the time when an expansive civilization based on synergy of fuels, science, and technical innovation was born. At its beginnings in the 1870s were dynamite,the telephone, photographic film, and the first light bulbs. Its peak decade - the astonishing 1880s - brought electricity - generating plants, electric motors, steam turbines, the gramophone, cars, aluminum production, air-filled rubber tires, and prestressed concrete. And its post-1900 period sawthe first airplanes, tractors, radio signals and plastics, neon lights and assembly line production. This book is a systematic interdisciplinary account of the history of this outpouring of European and American intellect and of its truly epochal consequences....
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- The (practical) steam turbine is one of the fundamental, yet unacknowledged, bases of our material civilization. Parsons based his intricate design on the equations of thermodynamics; he succeeded in a very complicated task where many others had tried, and failed. His work is about as many orders of magnitude more complex and demanding than Hero's aoelipile as a modern race car is compared to a spring-powered toy cart.
That said, I agree that the terminology is flexible and the steam turbine can be considered a kind of steam engine; it is, however, very different in its principle of operation from the Watt-type steam engine (which it displaced in the XXth century). Regarding high-pressure steam, as far as I know Watt's patent precluded anyone from using a condenser in their steam engine, which is an essential component. Thus only engineers affiliated with Watt himself were able to produce commercial steam engines during the 25 years he held the patent, and he refused to let them work with high-pressure steam (despite a good deal of interest).
For a more thorough, and much better documented, discussion of these issues, I recommend chapter 3 (Internal Combustion Engines) of Vaclav Smil's book "Creating the Twentieth Century".
- Here's a list we maintain at work: http://blog.greenmountainengineering.com/greenmountain_engin...
I contributed Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder and Desert Solitaire by Ed Abbey, among others.
For nonfiction: Creating the Twentieth Century: Technical Innovations of 1867-1914 and Their Lasting Impact by Vaclav Smil
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The Sovereign Individual by James Dale Davidson
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff
Mastering Ethereum by Andreas M. Antonopoulos
The Creature from Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin
Mastering Bitcoin by Andreas M. Antonopoulos
The Bitcoin Standard by Saifedean Ammous
Digital Gold by Nathaniel Popper
The Internet of Money by Andreas M. Antonopoulos
Creating the Twentieth Century by Vaclav Smil
Mastering Bitcoin by Andreas M. Antonopoulos
Applied Cryptography by Bruce Schneier
Blockchain Bubble or Revolution by Neel Mehta
Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies by Arvind Narayanan
Inventing Bitcoin by Yan Pritzker
The Little Bitcoin Book by Bitcoin Collective
Serious Cryptography by Jean-Philippe Aumasson
An Altcoin Trader's Handbook by Nik Patel
The Price of Tomorrow by Jeff Booth
Programming Bitcoin by Jimmy Song
Bitcoin by Knut Svanholm
The Basics of Bitcoins and Blockchains by Antony Lewis
Bitcoin & Black America by Isaiah Jackson
Mastering Monero by SerHack
Grokking Bitcoin by Kalle Rosenbaum
Why Buy Bitcoin by Andy Edstrom
The Book of Satoshi by Phil Champagne
This Book Will Save You Time by Misir Mahmudov
Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital by Carlota Perez
Bitcoin by Knut Svanholm
Cryptocurrency Investing For Dummies by Kiana Danial
The Dreams of Reason by Heinz R. Pagels
21 Lessons by Gigi
Bitcoin Clarity by Kiara Bickers
Rethinking Money by Bernard Lietaer
From Bitcoin to Burning Man and Beyond by John H. Clippinger
The Bitcoin Revolution by Dominick Barbato
The Heretic's Guide to Global Finance by Brett Scott
How Money Got Free by Brian Patrick Eha
Handbook of Digital Currency by David LEE Kuo Chuen
Blockchain Technology Explained by Alan T. Norman
Cryptoassets by Chris Burniske
Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain by David Gerard
Bitcoin Billionaires by Ben Mezrich
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Blockchain and the Law by Primavera De Filippi
Bitcoin by Dominic Frisby
Blockchain by Mark Gates
The Age of Cryptocurrency by Paul Vigna
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The Truth Machine by Paul Vigna
Blockchain Revolution by Don Tapscott
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Digital Cash by Finn Brunton
Introducing Ethereum and Solidity by Chris Dannen
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