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Reluctant Genius: Alexander Graham Bell and the Passion for Invention Kindle Edition
In an intensely competitive age, Bell seemed to shun fame and fortune. Yet many of his innovations—electric heating, using light to transmit sound, electronic mail, composting toilets, the artificial lung—were far ahead of their time. His pioneering ideas about sound, flight, genetics, and even the engineering of complex structures such as stadium roofs still resonate today. This is an essential portrait of an American giant whose innovations revolutionized the modern world.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherArcade
- Publication dateAugust 1, 2011
- File size2720 KB
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Product details
- ASIN : B005PTZLI2
- Publisher : Arcade; Reprint edition (August 1, 2011)
- Publication date : August 1, 2011
- Language : English
- File size : 2720 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 480 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #633,284 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #193 in History of Astronomy
- #197 in Engineering Patents & Inventions
- #396 in Biographies of Scientists
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First is the story of the invention of the telephone. On it’s own merit this is a major story, but, hidden within we get the story of Alexander Graham Bell’s lifelong devotion to the problems of the hearing impaired. What a story! Bell combined his knowledge of the production of sound with his creative genius that was his gift to the birth of the first working telephone. He was such a tortured soul.His creative dominated his meagre skill as an entrepreneur. His battles with other inventors over the telephone patent provides enough material for another book..
The second story concerns his remarkable love affair with his wife. Even with her hearing loss, her remarkable story of overcoming adversity. Is a good story in itself. Her ability to look into her husband and recognize his demons, point him towards some kind of action speaks to her intelligence and ability. There is another book here as well.
The story of Alexander Graham Bell presented here by the author provides a masterful picture of a creative genius. Reluctant Genius is thoroughly researched and beautifully presented. The author creates a wonderful story for us to enjoy and we are better off for it.
This book adds quite a bit to the hearing impairments of his mother and wife (his mother was hard of hearing and gradually became deaf, his wife was born hearing but became profoundly deaf). I appreciated the details of how each of these women handled their life. The saddest part was that the couple developed a handholding signage that they never shared with anyone, and they never taught their children any means of accommodating deaf people other than facing them so they could lip read. This left their mother isolated after AGB died and her eyesight failed.
I had no idea that AGB headed a research group that designed and built a plane that at one point held the record for longest plane flight on U.S. soil by an American pilot. The plane made many advances over the designs of the day and made innovative uses of building materials . The book gives just the right (for me) level of information about this design. He also saw hydrofoil boats on a trip and realized that they would be ideal for looking for submarines, because the hydrofoil made so little noise underwater that the subs would not hear them and shut down their engines to avoid detection. He and the local workmen near his Canadian summer home built and used a giant hydrofoil on the local bay, but WWI ended and the U.S. military did not pursue it.
This book also described AGB's work process and lifestyle in much greater detail than I had read before. He was what I would call a Prima Donna, and his family pretty much followed in the wake of his exacting expectations of regularity in most of his work environment, interrupted by his flights of fancy. There was some family tension over his relationship with Helen Keller. I can understand this, because she was such a remarkable and charismatic person that she pretty much took over any gathering that she was a part of. Yet, nothing I read before focused on what the relationship meant to the rest of the family.