Built: The Hidden Stories Behind Our Structures

Product Information

Megan Good clings to actor boyfriend Jonathan Majors in New York the day before his domestic violence trial begins - as it's revealed case may include ex-girlfriend's testimony Agrawal reveals that when she goes to the top of the Shard now, it’s mainly to look at and admire the bolts that keep it together and stable. Nails to screws to rivets to bolts: that’s the march of technology summed up in a sentence. Inside Annabel Giles' turbulent love life: Friends and exes reveal how the model ditched her fiancé on eve of wedding to run away with Midge Ure

Explaining the workings of familiar objects is a well-worn conceit. Agrawal enriches her account by showing how her chosen devices also work in combination, creating artefacts as unlikely as they are exotic. So, while Cochran’s dishwasher sits at the heart of the discussion of wheels, the chapter ends with a stellar flourish, describing the four 100kg gyroscopes, spinning 6,600 times a minute, whose angular momentum stabilises the International Space Station in Earth orbit. I'm A Celebrity's Nella Rose rushed out of camp to see medic as hostsAnt McPartlin and Declan Donnelly share health updateWhat form did this extreme domination take? No good asking Kwolek who, by her own account, “was fortunate that I worked under men who were very much interested in making discoveries and inventions. Because they were so interested in what they were doing, they left me alone.”

No cars, no houses; no phones, bridges or roads. No tunnels under tidal rivers, no soaring skyscrapers. The impact that engineering has had on the human experience is undeniable, but it is also often invisible. Agrawal traces her interests to her early childhood in New York, to the thrill and thrall of skyscrapers, and a curiosity about the ways that things go together. This continued after she moved to Mumbai with her family, and then to Oxford to study physics. It was only when she did a summer job in the physics department, and saw engineers designing specialist equipment, that she realised she wanted to be one. It is this idea that inspired my book where I select what I believe are seven elements that form the basis of the modern world – the nail, the wheel, the spring, the magnet, the lens, the pump and string. Together they encompass a vast range of innovations in terms of their underlying scientific principles, the fields of engineering they touch, and the scale of objects they have enabled. They are also wonders of design that went through many different iterations and forms, and continue to do so. As they evolved, combined in different ways, the complexity of the machines we could make escalated in a cascading butterfly effect of invention and innovation. Every one of these objects has touched us – they have created and changed our technology, of course, but have also had a sweeping impact on our history, society, political and power structures, biology, communication, transportation, arts and culture. Her urge is towards simplicity and clarity. She likes it when you can see how a building works – the big diamond pattern on the outside of the Gherkin, for example, which gives it rigidity and strength. She liked working with Renzo Piano’s office: “My understanding is that Piano’s father was a joiner, so he pays a lot of attention to putting things together. I loved that.” She hopes that, once they’ve read Built, people will be able to look out of the windows of an underground train, see the metal rings of the tunnel and think: I know how that works. ITV presenter reveals his wife, 30, has been diagnosed with rare and incurable brain cancer just months after she gave birth to their first childAgrawal’s detours into politics – the plight of women in STEM, the use of male physical norms in product design – are less happy. They would hardly raise an eyebrow, had she only given them the space they deserved. As it is, she invites the reader to genuflect before some highly dubious ex cathedra statements. All this evolution doesn’t mean that the original nail is obsolete, however. In fact, nails, and their multiple reincarnations, are all being used in parallel with screws, rivets, and bolts, each one for the purpose it best suits. And that’s how design changes: sometimes we use the same technology for centuries before we invent a new material or process, or realise that we need to adapt existing technology to suit. Other times, it’s the other way around: we invent a new technology, like the incredibly strong fibre Kevlar, and then find purposes for it – in this case, bulletproof vests. Some of these inventions developed independently in different parts of the globe with very similar designs, like the wheel, but others, like the pump, looked very different. And so, these inventions were born, then changed and evolved in their own ways, often going on to have unexpected applications and implications far beyond their original purpose. Bradley Cooper reacts to Brooke Shields calling him her 'guardian angel' after he helped her survive terrifying seizure Agrawal, Roma (23 June 2015). "Why stereotypes are causing a skills gap in UK engineering" . Retrieved 29 September 2017. Tom Daley gifts Gillian Anderson with a multi-coloured crocheted PENIS and jumper to wear on her show Sex Education