Vaclav Smil
Author
Pub. Date
2021.
Language
English
Description
"Vaclav Smil's mission is to make facts matter. An environmental scientist, policy analyst, and a hugely prolific author, he is Bill Gates' go-to guy for making sense of our world. In Numbers Don't Lie, Smil answers questions such as: What's worse for the environment--your car or your phone? How much do the world's cows weigh (and what does it matter)? And what makes people happy?"--
Author
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Formats
Description
"An essential analysis of the modern science and technology that makes our twenty-first century lives possible--a scientist's investigation into what science really does, and does not, accomplish. We have never had so much information at our fingertips and yet most of us don't know how the world really works. This book explains seven of the most fundamental realities governing our survival and prosperity. From energy and food production, through our...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"Smil presents the long history and modern infatuation with invention and innovation. Meticulous as always, these vast realms of human ingenuity are organized into sensible categories: inventions that went from welcome to undesirable, inventions that dominate and missed the mark, inventions we still dream about, and lastly, the exaggerations, myths, and wise expectations for innovations we need most"--
Author
Publisher
William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
Pub. Date
[2023]
Language
English
Description
"Grounded in history and drawing on the latest science, the author explores the concept of size and how it determines the world around us, explaining the regularities and peculiarities of the key processes of shaping life, the Earth, technical advances, and societies and economies."--
Author
Series
Publisher
Crítica Portugal
Pub. Date
2022
Language
Portuguese
Description
«Uma nova obra-prima de um dos meus autores favoritos... Um livro fascinante e de fácil leitura que deixa os leitores com a base fundamental necessária para ajudar a resolver os desafios mais difíceis do mundo.»
Bill Gates
Nunca tivemos tanta informação ao nosso alcance e ainda assim a maioria de nós não sabe como o mundo realmente funciona. Este livro explica sete das realidades fundamentais que regem a nossa sobrevivência e a prosperidade....
Author
Publisher
BookaVivo
Pub. Date
2022
Language
Español
Description
La energía es la única moneda de cambio universal. Sin transformación de energía, no hay nada. La vida en la Tierra depende de la conversión de la energía solar en biomasa vegetal, mientras que los seres humanos hemos aprendido a utilizar otros flujos de energía, como los combustibles fósiles o la generación fotovoltaica de electricidad. En esta monumental historia, Vaclav Smil ofrece una impresionante panorámica de cómo la energía ha...
Author
Language
English
Description
The industrial synthesis of ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen, making possible artificial fertilizers, was of fundamental importance to the modern world. The expansion of the world's population from 1.6 billion people in 1900 to today's six billion would not have been possible without the synthesis of ammonia. The book begins with a discussion of nitrogen's unique status in the biosphere, its role in crop production, and traditional means of supplying...
Author
Publisher
The MIT Press
Pub. Date
[2013]
Language
English
Description
In Made in the USA, Vaclav Smil powerfully rebuts the notion that manufacturing is a relic of predigital history, and that the loss of American manufacturing is a desirable evolutionary step toward a pure service economy. Smil argues that no advanced economy can prosper without a strong, innovative manufacturing sector and the jobs it creates.
Smil explains how manufacturing became a fundamental force behind America's economic, strategic, and social...
Author
Publisher
The MIT Press
Pub. Date
[2017]
Language
English
Description
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....
Author
Series
Publisher
The MIT Press
Pub. Date
2019.
Language
English
Description
"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...
Author
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Pub. Date
[2021]
Language
English
Description
"The modern world was created through the combination and complex interactions of five grand transitions. First, the demographic transition changed the total numbers, dynamics, structure, and residential pattern of populations. The agricultural and dietary transition led to the emergence of highly productive cropping and animal husbandry (subsidized by fossil energies and electricity), which eliminated famines, reduced malnutrition, and improved the...
Author
Publisher
John Wiley & Sons Inc
Pub. Date
2014.
Language
English
Description
"How much further should the affluent world push its material consumption? Does relative dematerialization lead to absolute decline in demand for materials? These and many other questions are discussed and answered in Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization.Over the course of time, the modern world has become dependent on unprecedented flows of materials. Now even the most efficient production processes and the highest practical rates...