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  • Exactly

  • How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World
  • By: Simon Winchester
  • Narrated by: Simon Winchester
  • Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (304 ratings)

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Exactly

By: Simon Winchester
Narrated by: Simon Winchester
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Publisher's Summary

SHORTLISTED FOR THE ROYAL SOCIETY SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE 2018 

Best-selling author Simon Winchester writes a magnificent history of the pioneering engineers who developed precision machinery to allow us to see as far as the moon and as close as the Higgs boson.

Precision is the key to everything. It is an integral, unchallenged and essential component of our modern social, mercantile, scientific, mechanical and intellectual landscapes. The items we value in our daily lives - a camera, a phone, a computer, a bicycle, a car, a dishwasher perhaps - all sport components that fit together with precision and operate with near perfection. We also assume that the more precise a device the better it is. And yet whilst we live lives peppered and larded with precision, we are not, when we come to think about it, entirely sure what precision is or what it means. How and when did it begin to build the modern world?

Simon Winchester seeks to answer these questions through stories of precision’s pioneers. Exactly takes us back to the origins of the Industrial Age, to Britain where he introduces the scientific minds that helped usher in modern production: John ‘Iron-Mad’ Wilkinson, Henry Maudslay, Joseph Bramah, Jesse Ramsden and Joseph Whitworth. Thomas Jefferson exported their discoveries to the United States as manufacturing developed in the early 20th century, with Britain’s Henry Royce developing the Rolls-Royce and Henry Ford mass producing cars, Hattori’s Seiko and Leica lenses, to today’s cutting-edge developments from Europe, Asia and North America.

As he introduces the minds and methods that have changed the modern world, Winchester explores fundamental questions. Why is precision important? What are the different tools we use to measure it? Who has invented and perfected it? Has the pursuit of the ultra-precise in so many facets of human life blinded us to other things of equal value, such as an appreciation for the age-old traditions of craftsmanship, art, and high culture? Are we missing something that reflects the world as it is rather than the world as we think we would wish it to be? And can the precise and the natural coexist in society?

©2018 Simon Winchester (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic Reviews

"An ingenious argument that the dazzling advances that produced the scientific revolution, the industrial revolution, and the revolutions that followed owe their success to a single engineering element: precision.... An enthusiastic popular-science tour of technological marvels...readers will love the ride." (Kirkus)

"Another gem from one of the world’s justly celebrated historians specializing in unusual and always fascinating subjects and people." (Booklist)

"Winchester’s latest is a rollicking work of pop science that entertains and informs." (Publishers Weekly)

What listeners say about Exactly

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A revelation and a delight

An engrossing tour of the quests for accuracy and perfection in engineering and it's impacts on Society. Ideal for both the Engineer and Non-Engineer. It's not a technical book but is rich with detail with the narration both lively and mellifluous. This was an entertaining and informative listening, and I'd imagine reading, experience. Destined to be another classic volume by Simon Winchester. I eagerly look forward to his next subject.

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8 people found this helpful

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  • Ian
  • 18-11-2018

Captivating

You'd think by the title that this is going to be a dry, technical book. In fact it's quite the opposite. This is a fascinating tale, superbly written and wonderfully narrated. We live in a world where we take so much for granted and learning about how things we use every day evolved in every increasing precision and the amazing stories of the people who created them is just captivating. Immensely enjoyable. The final example of humanity's most precise instrument, the LIGO, which can measure the distance to the nearest star, 4.3 light years away to within the width of a human hair is just one example of the myriad of Oh Wow moments throughout this book. If you are curious about how the world and everything in it got to where we are today, read this book.

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Fascinating story of human inginuity

Read by author and great story of human development in manufacturing. It covers all manner of objects from cannon to muskets to the manufacturing of modern Intel chips. Listened non stop during a long car trip. Loved it.

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A must read

A brilliantly written and well researched book. Winchester makes a possible tedious topic, a fascinating topic

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Story well told

Learned a lot, old and new. Fascinating progression through the development of tolerances bringing us to today's precise world.

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A Thurley enjoyable romp through history

first up I will add the proviso that I love the history of scientific achievement, so I was already positively disposed to the subject matter. I think Simon Winchester organisational of this book by orders of magnitude of procession was clever and works well. this book will appeal to anyone who likes engineering and science. the book contains fantasic narratives around each significant advancement in precision that made this book hard to stop listening to.

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The depth of research and knowledge.

I loved the distillation of a lot of history into one book. Simon Winchester did a terrific job. well done indeed.

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Fantastic

Wonderfully written and read (by the author), a fascinating history that keeps one enthralled from start to finish!

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Sensational

An utterly captivating, fascinating and surprisingly moving journey through history, philosophy, human characters and mind bending physics.

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Great AudioBook

Read by the author himself, this book is packed with tremendous detail. I’d recommend this audiobook to anyone who is interested in engineering precision as well as any engineering student but also to the average tinkerer.

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