If you had never seen an airplane -- or even a balloon or a kite --what would convince you that man could fly?Discoveries and Inventions is a new series that looks at the history ofscience and technology from a unique perspective. In each of these concise andhighly illustrated books, specialist science writers focus on areas of everydaylife that have been vastly changed by discovery, research, and invention. Butwhat makes these books so interesting and so much fun is that no prior knowledgeof the subject is assumed.Series editor Rodney Dale has found trade catalogs, advertisements, patentdrawings, blueprints, and photographs of inventions and discoveries -- all thevisual evidence of scientists and inventors bringing their ideas to reality. Aswe see how each new invention was originally presented to the public, it becomesclear how one invention naturally paved the way to another, how one machineallowed another to be made, and how the need for a new machine or processcountered the effect of a preceding one.Based on the wide-ranging resources of the British Library's science andtechnology collections, this new history taps into our natural fascination formachines, inventions, and figuring out how things work -- ideal for buddingThomas Edisons, Orville Wrights, or Rube Goldbergs of any age.Early Flying Machines ranges from the first recorded history of man'sattempt to fly to the Wright brothers' first powered flight.