Imprisoned for life aboard a zeppelin that floats high above a fantastic metropolis, greeting-card writer Harold Winslow pens his memoirs. His only companions are the disembodied voice of Miranda Taligent, the only woman he has ever loved, and the cryogenically frozen body of her father, Prospero, the genius and industrial magnate who drove her insane. As Harold heads toward a last desperate confrontation with Prospero to save Miranda's life, he finds himself an unwitting participant in the creation of the greatest invention of them all: the perpetual motion machine. Beautifully written, stunningly imagined, and wickedly funny, Dexter Palmer's The Dream of Perpetual Motion is a heartfelt meditation on the place of love in a world dominated by technology.

In June of 1712, a previously obscure German-Polish inventor named Johann Ernst Elias Bessler first came to prominence in the town of Gera, Saxony, by publicly exhibiting a remarkable invention. It was a self-moving perpetual motion wheel whose secret mechanics had taken him a decade of sacrifice, toil, and the construction of about a hundred handmade models to finally obtain. In the years following, he continued to improve his successful invention and eventually constructed and demonstrated a twelve-foot-diameter wheel at a count’s castle in the town of Kassel, Saxony. By then, his marvelous wheels were the talk of European high society and had been witnessed by thousands of people. His dream was to sell one of his amazing machines and then use the money to found a religious university dedicated to teaching the many technical crafts he had learned during his life and travels. Bessler, however, fearing an unscrupulous buyer might try to learn the secret of his wheels before complete payment was made, demanded a single upfront sum that at the time was equal to the value of a ton of gold! It was an amount of money that only the richest could afford to pay, yet none seemed willing to do so unless he could know the secret of Bessler’s wheels before the sale was made in order to satisfy himself that he was not paying a king’s ransom for a worthless fake. As a consequence of this stalemate, the invention was never sold, and in November of 1745, Bessler, then sixty-five years of age, was killed in a tragic construction accident. He took the secret of his wheels to his grave, and it has remained there for the last three centuries despite the efforts of thousands of perpetual motion seekers to rediscover it. Now, however, with the publication of The Triumphant Orffyrean Perpetual Motion Finally Explained! this situation has changed. After discovering an unsuspected source of hidden instructions Bessler left to guide future reverse engineers of his wheels and then using them to construct and test over two thousand computer models, author and researcher Kenneth W. Behrendt can finally reveal the long-sought secret of Bessler’s wheels and do so with enough detail to allow them to be duplicated today! This groundbreaking treatment of the subject should be of great interest to anybody wondering about the possibility of self-motive machinery in general or seeking to explore the topic of Bessler’s wheels at a far deeper level than was previously possible.

Changlin Zhang provides a scientific basis for the success behind alternative therapies such as acupuncture, qigong, Ayurveda, and other traditional therapies in an illuminating discussion that explains the efficacy of these approaches in treating a number of chronic conditions. Underlining how public perception of acupuncture has shifted over the last few decades from one of skepticism to one of acceptance, he explores the progression of acupuncture research from its unsuccessful beginnings to the ultimate discovery of a scientific basis for therapies centered on the subtle coherence patterns of interacting electromagnetic waves and fields. He explains the dissipative structure of electromagnetic waves that constitutes our electromagnetic body and describes how changes in our mood, lifestyle, and environment affect it. Invisible Rainbow explains these developments within the context of science's parallel development from its nineteenth-century focus on materialism, reductionism, and closed systems to its realization of the mass-energy equivalence, electromagnetic field, and its study of open complex systems. Discussing differences in Eastern and Western thought traditions and how they influence their respective medical systems, it also elucidates acupuncture's meridian system and Ayurveda's chakras and auras.

A reissue with a foreword and supplement, of a modern classic published in 1960. The invention of the mechanical clock was one of the most important turning points in the history of science and technology. This study revealed six centuries of mechanical clockwork preceding the first mechanical escapement clocks of the West of about AD 1300. Detailed and fully illustrated accounts of elaborate Chinese clocks are accompanied by a discussion of the social context of the Chinese inventions and an assessment of their possible transmission to medieval Europe. For this revised edition, Dr Joseph Needham has contributed a new foreword on recent research and perceptions. In a supplement John H. Combridge details a modern reconstruction of Su Sung's timekeeping device, which together with textual studies modifies our understanding of this important early technology.

Was Jesus a giant electron? How much does a mouse’s soul weigh? Can women mate with monkeys? As mad as these questions may seem, they have been asked by science in years gone by. Forgotten Science unearths some of the most extraordinary attempts to understand the world around us.

“Wonderful essays on everything steampunk, written by well-known names in the movement who are living steampunk every day” (Wired.com). Steampunk—a grafting of Victorian aesthetic and punk rock attitude onto various forms of science-fiction culture—is a phenomenon that has come to influence film, literature, art, music, fashion, and more. The Steampunk Bible is the first compendium about the movement, tracing its roots in the works of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells through its most recent expression in movies such as Sherlock Holmes. Its adherents celebrate the inventor as an artist and hero, re-envisioning and crafting retro technologies including antiquated airships and robots. A burgeoning DIY community has brought a distinctive Victorian-fantasy style to their crafts and art. Steampunk evokes a sense of adventure and discovery, and embraces extinct technologies as a way of talking about the future. This ultimate manual will appeal to aficionados and novices alike as author Jeff VanderMeer takes the reader on a wild ride through the clockwork corridors of Steampunk history. Praise for The Steampunk Bible “An informed, informative and beautifully illustrated survey of the subject.” —The Financial Times “The Steampunk Bible is far and away the most intriguing catalog of all things steam yet written.” —The Austin Chronicle

Broken Wheel is a series about raw human emotion and I used exactly that to write it. This time around I threw all the rules out the window and wrote some things that I'm not afraid to say but others might be afraid to say out loud. While also invoking a sense of deep thought to go along with a (dark) sense of humor. Whether you're looking for something to pass the time, tickle your funny bone, make you blush, or to make you think outside the box, then you've made the right choice because this book has it all. If you don't believe it then crack it open and take a gander at any page and you'll soon be captivated or giggling.

Fuel is an idiosyncratic, speculative dictionary of fuels, real and imagined, historical and futuristic, hopeless and utopian. Drawing on literature, film, and scientific treatises—most produced long before “climate change” was in circulation—Fuel argues for a distinction between energy (a system of power) and fuel (a substance, which can be thought of as “potentiality”) as it endeavors to undo the dream that we can simply switch to renewables and all will be golden. From “Air” to “Zyklon B,” entries in this unusual “dictionary” include Algae, Clathrates, Dilithium, Fleece, Goats, Theology, Whale Oil, and many, many more. The tone of the entries ranges as widely as the topics: from historical anecdotes (the Ford Fiesta “boozemobile”) to eccentric readings of the classics of “energy lit” (Germinal and Oil!); from literary observations (a high octane Odyssey?) to excursions into literary theory. The dictionary draws from an eccentric canon, including works by Jules Verne, George Eliot’s Silas Marner, Paolo Bacigalupi’s Windup Girl, and the Tom Cruise vehicle Oblivion, among others. A message from this ambitious project is that energy can be understood as a heterogeneous set of self-mystifying systems or machines that block access to thought as they fascinate us. Fuels emerge as more primal elements that the audience can grasp at various points along the way to consumption/combustion. This dictionary can help scramble our thinking about fuel—not in order to demonize energy and not in order to create a new hierarchy in which certain renewables take over from fossil fuels but instead to open up potential ways of interacting with real and imaginary substances, by wrenching them out of narrative and placing them into an idiosyncratic dictionary to be applied by readers into new narratives.

"Life of Leonardo da Vinci" is an engaging and insightful biography that explores the extraordinary life of one of history's greatest geniuses. From his early days as a curious boy in Vinci, Italy, to his groundbreaking work as an artist, scientist, and inventor, this book reveals the many facets of Leonardo's brilliance. It delves into his masterpieces like the *Mona Lisa* and *The Last Supper*, as well as his innovative ideas in anatomy, engineering, and physics that were far ahead of his time. Readers will also learn about the challenges he faced in bringing his visionary ideas to life in a world that often struggled to understand his genius. Written in an accessible and captivating style, "Life of Leonardo da Vinci" captures the essence of a man whose relentless pursuit of knowledge and creativity continues to inspire centuries later.

German writer, critic, and theorist Paul Scheerbart (1863–1915) died nearly a century ago, but his influence is still being felt today. Considered by some a mad eccentric and by others a visionary political thinker in his own time, he is now experiencing a revival thanks to a new generation of scholars who are rightfully situating him in the modernist pantheon. Glass! Love!! Perpetual Motion!!! is the first collection of Scheerbart’s multifarious writings to be published in English. In addition to a selection of his fantastical short stories, it includes the influential architectural manifesto Glass Architecture and his literary tour-de-force Perpetual Motion: The Story of an Invention. The latter, written in the guise of a scientific work (complete with technical diagrams), was taken as such when first published but in reality is a fiction—albeit one with an important message. Glass! Love!! Perpetual Motion!!! is richly illustrated with period material, much of it never before reproduced, including a selection of artwork by Paul Scheerbart himself. Accompanying this original material is a selection of essays by scholars, novelists, and filmmakers commissioned for this publication to illuminate Scheerbart’s importance, then and now, in the worlds of art, architecture, and culture. Coedited by artist Josiah McElheny and Christine Burgin, with new artwork created for this publication by McElheny, Glass! Love!! Perpetual Motion!!! is a long-overdue monument to a modern master.