With over 1,500 colorful photos and illustrations and lively text, this tribute to human imagination and ingenuity salutes creative solutions developed over the centuries. This book explores achievements, inventions and discoveries in every field of human endeavor: science and engineering, travel and communications, explorations in outer space, medicine, home and workplace, war and weapons, and the arts and leisure. This clearly written reference settles the reader's curiosity about how ordinary objects work and celebrates the technological marvels that have become part of everyday life.