35 machines are divided into six general groups: ancient machine tools, lifting devices, mechanisms, machines for pumping and water raising, blowing machines, and heat engines.

Designed for the mechanically curious and venturesome, this book presents descriptions and model plans for a great variety of ingenious tools, devices, and engines invented over a span of history ranging from prehistory and antiquity to the Renaissance and recent centuries. The author writes that his book "is intended for all those who like to experiment and make things work, from the schoolboy upwards. It will help them to experience the pleasure and satisfaction of making things with their own hands. "Simple instructions are given for making and putting to work models of scientific and historic significance, while suggesting their place in the advance of technical progress through the ages." Photographs of built models and drawings of historical examples animate the descriptions of some of the machines, while for each of the 35 machines a full-page scaled drawing of the model to be built is provided. Although fully adequate, these plans purposely do not specify dimensions and materials in such detail as to prelude inventiveness and machine-shop ingenuity on the part of the builder. The models are not meant to be exact, scaled duplicates of particular historical examples, but rather abstractions of their working essence. In the process of learning from experience the techniques of good mechanical craftsmanship, the model builder principles of the science of mechanics. Because they embody these basic principles in the simplest ways, most of the mechanisms described in the book are still in use, either unchanged in primitive hands, or refined and incorporated into sophisticated devices. The 35 machines are divided into six general groups: ancient machine tools, lifting devices, mechanisms, machines for pumping and water raising, blowing machines, and heat engines. Among the more famous of the machines are Leonardo's lathe, the screw generating device, the coin-in-the-slot machine, Foliot and verge escapement, the Archimedean snail, the Ctesibian pump. Hero whirling Aeolipile, and the Arabian grappling device.

This book is intended for all those who like to experiment and make things work, from the schoolboy upwards. It will help them to experience the pleasure and satisfaction of making things with their own hands.

This is a unique interactive guide to understanding simple machines and mechanisms. Each page introduces you to a key mechanical principle that you put into practice by building one or more working models. This hands-on approach makes it easy to understand how these principles work and how they can be applied to everyday objects, such as cars, bicycles cranes and seesaws.

Designing and making successful automata involves combining materials, mechanisms and magic. Making Simple Automata explains how to design and construct small scale, simple mechanical devices made for fun. Materials such as paper and card, wood, wire, tinplate and plastics are covered along with mechanisms - levers and linkages, cranks and cams, wheels, gears, pulleys, springs, ratchets and pawls. This wonderful book is illustrated with examples throughout and explains the six golden rules for making automata alongside detailed step-by-step projects. Magic - an unanalyzable charm, a strong fascination so that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Superbly illustrated with 110 colour photographs with examples and detailed step-by-step projects.

Award-winning artist David Macaulay introduces readers to his hilarious new creations, Sloth and Sengi, in How Machines Work: Zoo Break! Get your cogs turning with these mega machines! This amazing, award-winning visual guide showcases the science and technology behind the most important machines ever invented. How Machines Work is a unique book full of inspiring illustrations by award-winning artist David Macaulay and packed with interactive elements, including press-out models, pop-ups, and pull-outs. Sloth and his sidekick Sengi are two furry friends on hand to guide you through the book and break down the basics. They’ll give you the lowdown on levers, pulleys, screws, inclined planes, wedges, and wheels on this intrepid adventure. You’ll find out how all different technologies work, from bicycles, cranes, and drills to diggers, hammers, and zips. Along the way, you’ll help Sloth and Sengi plot their daring escape from the zoo using only newfound scientific knowledge to make a machine designed for break outs and break aways. But will they succeed? Grab this essential guide, get your brain in gear, and get set for engineering greatness.

A systematic investigation of growth in nature and society, from tiny organisms to the trajectories of empires and civilizations. Growth has been both an unspoken and an explicit aim of our individual and collective striving. It governs the lives of microorganisms and galaxies; it shapes the capabilities of our extraordinarily large brains and the fortunes of our economies. Growth is manifested in annual increments of continental crust, a rising gross domestic product, a child's growth chart, the spread of cancerous cells. In this magisterial book, Vaclav Smil offers systematic investigation of growth in nature and society, from tiny organisms to the trajectories of empires and civilizations. Smil takes readers from bacterial invasions through animal metabolisms to megacities and the global economy. He begins with organisms whose mature sizes range from microscopic to enormous, looking at disease-causing microbes, the cultivation of staple crops, and human growth from infancy to adulthood. He examines the growth of energy conversions and man-made objects that enable economic activities—developments that have been essential to civilization. Finally, he looks at growth in complex systems, beginning with the growth of human populations and proceeding to the growth of cities. He considers the challenges of tracing the growth of empires and civilizations, explaining that we can chart the growth of organisms across individual and evolutionary time, but that the progress of societies and economies, not so linear, encompasses both decline and renewal. The trajectory of modern civilization, driven by competing imperatives of material growth and biospheric limits, Smil tells us, remains uncertain.

A comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society throughout history, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel–driven civilization. "I wait for new Smil books the way some people wait for the next 'Star Wars' movie. In his latest book, Energy and Civilization: A History, he goes deep and broad to explain how innovations in humans' ability to turn energy into heat, light, and motion have been a driving force behind our cultural and economic progress over the past 10,000 years. —Bill Gates, Gates Notes, Best Books of the Year Energy is the only universal currency; it is necessary for getting anything done. The conversion of energy on Earth ranges from terra-forming forces of plate tectonics to cumulative erosive effects of raindrops. Life on Earth depends on the photosynthetic conversion of solar energy into plant biomass. Humans have come to rely on many more energy flows—ranging from fossil fuels to photovoltaic generation of electricity—for their civilized existence. In this monumental history, Vaclav Smil provides a comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel–driven civilization. Humans are the only species that can systematically harness energies outside their bodies, using the power of their intellect and an enormous variety of artifacts—from the simplest tools to internal combustion engines and nuclear reactors. The epochal transition to fossil fuels affected everything: agriculture, industry, transportation, weapons, communication, economics, urbanization, quality of life, politics, and the environment. Smil describes humanity's energy eras in panoramic and interdisciplinary fashion, offering readers a magisterial overview. This book is an extensively updated and expanded version of Smil's Energy in World History (1994). Smil has incorporated an enormous amount of new material, reflecting the dramatic developments in energy studies over the last two decades and his own research over that time.