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| List of Illustrations | |
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| Prologue | |
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| Rocket: concerning ten thousand years, a hundred lineages, and two revolutionsxiii | |
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| Changes in the Atmosphere | |
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| concerning how a toy built in Alexandria failed to inspire, and how a glass tube made in Italy succeeded | |
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| the spectacle of two German hemispheres attached to sixteen German horses | |
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| and the critical importance of nothing at all | |
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| A Great Company of Man | |
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| concerning the many uses of a piston | |
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| how the world's first scientific society was founded at a college with no students | |
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| and the inspirational value of armories, Nonconformist preachers, incomplete patterns, and snifting values | |
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| The First and True Inventor | |
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| concerning a trial over the ownership of a deck of playing cards | |
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| a utopian fantasy island in the South Seas | |
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| one Statute and two Treatises | |
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| and the manner in which ideas were transformed from something one discovers to something one owns | |
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| A Very Great Quantity of Heat | |
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| concerning the discovery of fatty earth | |
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| the consequences of the deforestation of Europe | |
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| the limitations of waterpower | |
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| the experimental importance of a Scotsman's ice cube | |
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| and the search for the most valuable jewel in Britain | |
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| Science in his Hands | |
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| concerning the unpredictable consequences of sea air on iron telescopes | |
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| the power of the cube-square law | |
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| the Incorporation of Hammermen | |
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| the nature of insight | |
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| and the long-term effects of financial bubbles | |
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| The Whole thing was arranged in my Mind | |
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| concerning the surprising contents of a Ladies Diary | |
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| invention by natural selection | |
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| the Flynn Effect | |
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| neuronal avalanches | |
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| the critical distinction between invention and innovation | |
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| and the memory of a stroll on Glasgow Green | |
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| Master of them All | |
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| concerning differences among Europe's monastic brotherhoods | |
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| the unlikely contribution of the brewing of beer to the forging of iron | |
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| the geometry of crystals | |
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| and an old furnace made new | |
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| A Field that is Endless | |
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| concerning the unpredictable consequences of banking crises | |
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| a Private Act of Parliament | |
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| the folkways of Cornish miners | |
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| the difficulties in converting reciprocating into rotational motion | |
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| and the largest flour mill in the world | |
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| Quite Splendid with a File | |
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| concerning the picking of locks | |
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| the use of wood in the making of iron, and iron in the making of wood | |
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| the very great importance of very small errors | |
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| blocks of all shapes and sizes | |
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| and the tool known as "the Lord Chancellor" | |
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| To Give England the Power of Cotton | |
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| concerning the secret of silk spinning | |
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| two men named Kay | |
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| a child called Jenny | |
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| the breaking of frames | |
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| the great Cotton War between Calcutta and Lancashire | |
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| and the violent resentments of stocking knitters | |
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| Wealth of Nations | |
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| concerning Malthusian traps and escapes | |
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| spillovers and residuals | |
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| the uneasy relationship between population growth and innovation | |
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| and the limitations of Chinese emperors, Dutch bankers, and French revolutionaries | |
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| Strong Steam | |
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| concerning a Cornish Giant, and a trip up Camborne Hill | |
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| the triangular relationship between power, weight, and pressure | |
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| George Washington's flour mill and the dredging of the Schuylkill River | |
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| the long trip from Cornwall to Peru | |
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| and the most important railroad race in history | |
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| Epilogue: The Fuel of Interest | |
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| Acknowledgments | |
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| Notes | |
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| Index | |