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Edison's ghosts :  the untold weirdness of history's greatest geniuses  Cover Image Book Book

Edison's ghosts : the untold weirdness of history's greatest geniuses / Katie Spalding.

Spalding, Katie, (author.).

Summary:

"As Albert Einstein almost certainly never said, everyone is a genius--but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." So begins Kate Spalding's spunky takedown of the Western canon and how genius may not be as irrefutably great as we commonly understand. While most of us may never become Einstein, it may surprise you to learn that there's probably a bunch of stuff you can do that Einstein couldn't. And, as Spalding shows, the famous prodigies she explores here were quite odd by any definition. Edison's Ghost is filled with examples of the so-called best of humanity doing, to put it bluntly, some really dumb shit. You'll discover stories that deserve to be told but never are: the hilarious, regrettable, and downright baffingly lesser-known ahievements that haven't made it into our history books, until now. -- Provided by publisher.

Record details

  • ISBN: 9780316529525
  • ISBN: 0316529524
  • Physical Description: 342 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
  • Edition: First edition.
  • Publisher: New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2023.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 307-332) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:
The mathematical cult leader Pythagoras, and his incredibly stupid death -- Confucius was an ugly nerd with low self-esteem -- Never, ever hire Leonardo da Vinci -- Galileo utterly fails to read the room -- The entirely unbelievable life of Tycho Brahe -- When Rene Descartes got baked -- Isaac Newton and the philosopher's stone -- Mozart uses his superstar status to tell us all to kiss his arse... over and over again -- Benjamin Franklin uses world-changing technology to prank friends, self -- Emilie du Chatelet cares not for your social mores, and she will fight you in her underwear to prove it -- Johann Christian Reil invents psychiatry and things get really weird really quickly -- Napoleon Bonaparte's fluffiest foe -- Lord Byron, the patron saint of fuckboys -- Ada Lovelace's (husband) family jewels -- Galois hunting -- John Couch Adams ignores his mail, loses Neptune -- You really wouldn't want to hang out with Karl Marx -- Charles Darwin: Glutton; Worm dad; Murderer? -- James Glaisher, the Victorian weatherman who nearly became an astronaut -- Sigmund Freud used cocaine so much he thought numbers wanted to kill him -- Arthur Conan Doyle gets pranked so hard he claims fairies exist -- Thomas Edison's lesser-known invention: Dial-a-ghost -- Real-life supervillian Nicola Tesla takes the term 'pigeon fancying' a bit too literally -- Marie Curie defies all the odds to accidentally poison both herself and thousands of strangers -- Albert Einstein: Public nuisance, love rat -- Kurt Godel, the Disney princess who broke time -- Maya Angelou, in: Stop! Or my mom will shoot -- Ernest Hemingway may have been the worst double agent ever -- Yukio Mishima and the shortest, gayest fascist coup in history -- NASA forgets about women, toilets and the metric system.
Subject: Eccentrics and eccentricities > Anecdotes.
Gifted persons > Anecdotes.
Genre: Anecdotes.
Biographies.
Humor.

Available copies

  • 7 of 9 copies available at Missouri Evergreen. (Show)
  • 1 of 1 copy available at Cass County.

Holds

  • 0 current holds with 9 total copies.
Show Only Available Copies
Location Call Number / Copy Notes Barcode Shelving Location Status Due Date
Cass County Library-Peculiar Express 920.02 SPA 2023 (Text) 0002206308856 Adult Non-Fiction Available -


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