The first 20 minutes of “Dune: Prophecy” certainly leaned into the dense lore and history of the universe. The series begins by recounting the humans’ long and bloody war against the “thinking ...

Long before the advent of personal computers, inventors and researchers created what they called “teaching machines” in hopes of revolutionizing education. Some of these creations date back to the ...

As I was reading Audrey Watters’s Teaching Machines: The History of Personalized Learning, recently published by MIT Press, the word “landmark” kept occurring to me.[1] This is a landmark book. It is ...

Previously published separately under the following titles: History of the gear-cutting machine; a historical study in geometry and machines, c1958; History of the grinding machine; a historical study ...

IN Cornhill, Boston, thirty years ago, there was a shop for the manufacture and repair of nautical instruments and philosophical apparatus, kept by Ari Davis. Mr. Davis was a very ingenious mechanic, ...

If you enjoyed this article, I’d like to ask for your support. Scientific American has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in ...