Numbers Don't Lie

Paperback

Smil, Vaclav 저자(글)

Penguin Books · 2021년 05월 04일

책 소개

"Vaclav Smil is my favorite author… Numbers Don't Lie takes everything that makes his writing great and boils it down into an easy-to-read format. I unabashedly recommend this book to anyone who loves learning."--Bill Gates, GatesNotes

An essential guide to understanding how numbers reveal the true state of our world--exploring a wide range of topics including energy, the environment, technology, transportation, and food production.

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?

From data about our societies and populations, through measures of the fuels and foods that energize them, to the impact of transportation and inventions of our modern world--and how all of this affects the planet itself--in Numbers Don't Lie, Vaclav Smil takes us on a fact-finding adventure, using surprising statistics and illuminating graphs to challenge conventional thinking. Packed with fascinating information and memorable examples, Numbers Don't Lie reveals how the US is leading a rising worldwide trend in chicken consumption, that vaccination yields the best return on investment, and why electric cars aren't as great as we think (yet). Urgent and essential, with a mix of science, history, and wit--all in bite-sized chapters on a broad range of topics--Numbers Don't Lie inspires readers to interrogate what they take to be true.

작가정보

저자(글) Smil, Vaclav

Vaclav Smil is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba. He is the author of over forty books on topics including energy, environmental and population change, food production and nutrition, technical innovation, risk asssessment, and public policy. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a Member of the Order of Canada.

목차

• Chapter Page
  Introduction xi
  People
  The Inhabitants of Our World
  What happens when we have fewer children? 3
  The best indicator of quality of life? Try infant mortality 8
  The best return on investment: Vaccination 12
  Why it's difficult to predict how bad a pandemic will be while it is happening 15
  Growing taller 20
  Is life expectancy finally topping out? 24
  How sweating improved hunting 28
  How many people did it take to build the Great Pyramid? 31
  Why unemployment figures do not tell the whole story 35
  What makes people happy? 39
  The rise of megacities 44
  Countries
  Nations in the Age of Globalization
  The First World War's extended tragedies 53
  Is the US really exceptional? 57
  Why Europe should be more pleased with itself 61
  Brexit: Realities that matter most will not change 65
  Concerns about Japan's future 69
  How far can China go? 73
  India vs. China 77
  Why manufacturing remains important 82
  Russia and the USA: How things never change 86
  Receding empires: Nothing new under the sun 90
  Machines, Designs, Devices
  Inventions That Made Our Modern World
  How the 1880s created our modern world 97
  How electric motors power modern civilization 101
  Transformers-the unsung silent, passive devices 105
  Why you shouldn't write diesel off just yet 109
  Capturing motion-from horses to electrons 113
  From the phonograph to streaming 117
  Inventing integrated circuits 121
  Moore's Curse: Why technical progress takes longer than you think 125
  The rise of data: Too much too fast 129
  Being realistic about innovation 133
  Fuels and Electricity
  Energizing Our Societies
  Why gas turbines are the best choice 139
  Nuclear electricity-an unfulfilled promise 143
  Why you need fossil fuels to get electricity from wind 147
  How big can a wind turbine be? 151
  The slow rise of photovoltaics 154
  Why sunlight is still best 158
  Why we need bigger batteries 162
  Why electric container ships are a hard sail 166
  The real cost of electricity 170
  The inevitably slow pace of energy transitions 174
  Transport
  How We Get Around
  Shrinking the journey across the Atlantic 181
  Engines are older than bicycles! 185
  The surprising story of inflatable tires 189
  When did the age of the car begin? 193
  Modern cars have a terrible weight-to-payload ratio 197
  Why electric cars aren't as great as we think (yet) 201
  When did the jet age begin? 204
  Why kerosene is king 208
  How safe is flying? 212
  Which is more energy efficient-planes, trains, or automobiles? 216
  Food
  Energizing Ourselves
  The world without synthetic ammonia 221
  Multiplying wheat yields 226
  The inexcusable magnitude of global food waste 230
  The slow addio to the Mediterranean diet 235
  Bluefin tuna: On the way to extinction 239
  Why chicken rules 243
  (Not) drinking wine 247
  Rational meat-eating 251
  The Japanese diet 255
  Dairy products-the counter-trends 259
  Environment
  Damaging and Protecting Our World
  Animals vs. artifacts-which are more diverse? 267
  Planet of the cows 271
  The deaths of elephants 275
  Why calls for the Anthropocene era may be premature 279
  Concrete facts 283
  What's worse for the environment-your car or your phone? 287
  Who has better insulation? 291
  Triple-glazed windows: A see-through energy solution 295
  Improving the efficiency of household heating 299
  Running into carbon 303
  Epilogue 307
  Further Reading 309
  Acknowledgments 327
  Index 335

기본정보

ISBN	9780143136224 ( 0143136224 )
발행(출시)일자	2021년 05월 04일
쪽수	368쪽
크기	137 * 208 * 23 mm / 272 g
총권수	1권
언어	영어

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