Jon Gertner
In addition to writing books, I’m a longtime contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine. My journalism and book reviews have also appeared in Wired, The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. My magazine stories tend to address contemporary issues in science, technology, and business; my books focus more on historical episodes that have had a significant but underappreciated influence. To put it slightly differently: In longer projects, I’m trying to pay close attention to certain aspects of our past so we can better understand the present, and perhaps the future. My first book, The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation (Penguin Press, 2012) chronicles a generation of scientists working at the 20th Century’s greatest laboratory and explores the importance of technological innovation. The Ice at the End of the World, (Random House, 2019) details 150 years of exploration and investigation on the Greenland ice sheet, beginning in the 1880s. A story about the process of scientific discovery, the book aims to tell how the work in Greenland, aided by an evolving array of technological tools, has led us to a profound understanding of our current climate crisis. My next book for Random House will examine NASA’s long-running Voyager mission—its engineering, scientific observations, and legacy. The book will likewise explore the underlying principles of long-term projects and durability.
2 Books Written
The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation
by Jon Gertner
Rating: 4.4 ⭐
• 9 recommendations ❤️
The definitive history of America’s greatest incubator of innovation and the birthplace of some of the 20th century’s most influential technologies“Filled with colorful characters and inspiring lessons . . . The Idea Factory explores one of the most critical issues of our What causes innovation?” —Walter Isaacson, The New York Times Book Review“Compelling . . . Gertner's book offers fascinating evidence for those seeking to understand how a society should best invest its research resources.” — The Wall Street JournalFrom its beginnings in the 1920s until its demise in the 1980s, Bell Labs-officially, the research and development wing of AT&T-was the biggest, and arguably the best, laboratory for new ideas in the world. From the transistor to the laser, from digital communications to cellular telephony, it's hard to find an aspect of modern life that hasn't been touched by Bell Labs. In The Idea Factory , Jon Gertner traces the origins of some of the twentieth century's most important inventions and delivers a riveting and heretofore untold chapter of American history. At its heart this is a story about the life and work of a small group of brilliant and eccentric men-Mervin Kelly, Bill Shockley, Claude Shannon, John Pierce, and Bill Baker-who spent their careers at Bell Labs. Today, when the drive to invent has become a mantra, Bell Labs offers us a way to enrich our understanding of the challenges and solutions to technological innovation. Here, after all, was where the foundational ideas on the management of innovation were born.
The Ice at the End of the World: An Epic Journey into Greenland's Buried Past and Our Perilous Future
by Jon Gertner
Rating: 4.2 ⭐
Greenland: a remote, mysterious island five times the size of California but with a population of just 56,000. The ice sheet that covers it is 700 miles wide and 1,500 miles long, and is composed of nearly three quadrillion tons of ice. For the last 150 years, explorers and scientists have sought to understand Greenland--at first hoping that it would serve as a gateway to the North Pole, and later coming to realize that it contained essential information about our climate. Locked within this vast and frozen white desert are some of the most profound secrets about our planet and its future. Greenland's ice doesn't just tell us where we've been. More urgently, it tells us where we're headed.In The Ice at the End of the World, Jon Gertner explains how Greenland has evolved from one of earth's last frontiers to its largest scientific laboratory. The history of Greenland's ice begins with the explorers who arrived here at the turn of the twentieth century--first on foot, then on skis, then on crude, motorized sleds--and embarked on grueling expeditions that took as long as a year and often ended in frostbitten tragedy. Their original goal was simple: to conquer Greenland's seemingly infinite interior. Yet their efforts eventually gave way to scientists who built lonely encampments out on the ice and began drilling--one mile, two miles down. Their aim was to pull up ice cores that could reveal the deepest mysteries of earth's past, going back hundreds of thousands of years.Today, scientists from all over the world are deploying every technological tool available to uncover the secrets of this frozen island before it's too late. As Greenland's ice melts and runs off into the sea, it not only threatens to affect hundreds of millions of people who live in coastal areas. It will also have drastic effects on ocean currents, weather systems, economies, and migration patterns.Gertner chronicles the unfathomable hardships, amazing discoveries, and scientific achievements of the Arctic's explorers and researchers with a transporting, deeply intelligent style--and a keen sense of what this work means for the rest of us. The melting ice sheet in Greenland is, in a way, an analog for time. It contains the past. It reflects the present. It can also tell us how much time we might have left.