Author: K.V. Gopalakrishnan
Published: 1999
Publisher: National Book Trust, India
The author of this book is a well respected Professor of Mechanical Engineering who during his tenure of almost 40 years in IIT Madras taught advanced topics on internal combustion engines (I was privileged to be his student !), guided several research projects, and published several research papers .
Yet coming from such a highly technical and academic person, is this delightful little book on inventions and inventors which is very simple to read and can be easily understood by a layman.
The book is divided into two parts.
Part A called The Art and Science of Invention, discusses the impact of science and technology in our lives, how an inventor is different from a scientist, what makes an inventor tick and the process of invention.
Part B called the Great Inventors has short life sketches of twenty inventors, spanning over two centuries (18th to 20th) whose inventions/discoveries are taken for granted today.
The inventors covered are - James Watt, Eli Whitney, Michael Faraday, Samuel Morse, Charles Babbage, Henry Bessemer, Alfred Nobel, Thomas Alva Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Nikola Tesla, Rudolf Diesel, The Wright Brothers, Guglielmo Marconi, Robert Goddard, Igor Sikorsky, Robert Watson-Watt, Chester Carlson, Sir Frank Whittle, Edwin Land, Robert Noyce.
I came to know about several interesting little known facts about these inventors.
These life sketches bring out very clearly the tenacity of purpose, capacity of hard work, and supreme self-confidence these inventors exhibited to translate their ideas into reality.
A very motivating read for everyone especially for the young budding inventors.
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