When it comes to communicating the stakes involved in engineering, one could hardly do better than her description of a heart-lung patient, the beneficiary of 4,000 years of evolving pump design, asleep on the table, her heart and lungs removed so the surgeon can see the back of her ribcage. I’d already assumed, in my bleak way, that the UK was one of the worst countries for just chucking electronic equipment into landfill. Tracing the surprising journeys of each invention through the millennia, Roma reveals how handmade Roman nails led to modern skyscrapers, how the potter’s wheel enabled space exploration, and how humble lenses helped her conceive a child against the odds. May also contain light spine creasing or a few markings such as an owner's name, short gifter's inscription or light stamp. The chapter on springs pulls off the same deeply satisfying trick, showing step by step how the science behind the unfeasibly sophisticated Mongolian bow (bark, sinew, wood, bone, over a year of construction and drying time and a range half as far again as the English longbow) contributed to the design of architectural dampeners that reduce noise and vibration levels and make our cities compact, pleasant places to live.

Nuts and Bolts by Roma Agrawal | Royal Society

Roma has given talks to thousands at universities, schools and organisations around the world, including TEDx. Tracing the surprising journeys of each invention through the millennia, Roma reveals how handmade Roman nails led to modern skyscrapers, how the potter's wheel enabledspace exploration, and how humble lenses helped her conceive a child against the odds. By submitting this form, you acknowledge that you have read the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, that you understand them, and that you agree to be bound by them. The idea that small and simple things can be big and complex things in disguise is one that’s fascinated novelists for centuries.In her new book Nuts and Bolts Seven Small Inventions That Changed the World (in a Big Way), structural engineer Roma Agrawal identifies and examines the seven of most basic building blocks of engineering that have shaped the modern world: the nail, the wheel, the spring, the lens, the magnet, the string, and the pump.

Nuts and Bolts by Roma Agrawal | Hachette UK

Another of her subjects – string – helped in a similar way, although this was a technology we could entangle and wind to bind a shard of flint to an axe handle, or adapt into products as diverse as clothing and guitar strings.From the physics behind both Roman nails and modern skyscrapers to rudimentary springs that inspired lithium batteries, Agrawal shows us how even the most sophisticated items are built on the foundations of these ancient and fundamental breakthroughs in engineering. So Cochrane did what any enterprising engineer’s daughter would do – and invented the dishwasher, “a large, rectangular wooden box, with a slew of cranks, spinning gears, and wheels on one side, into which a cage full of dirty dishes disappeared, only to reappear minutes later, clean, as if washed by hand. Together, they have enabled humanity to see the invisible, build the spectacular, communicate across vast distances, and even escape our planet. Roma Agrawal is an engineer, author and presenter who is best known for working on the design of The Shard, Western Europe's tallest tower. Our donations to The Rainbow Centre have helped provide an education and a safe haven to hundreds of children who live in appalling conditions.