The history of the computer is entwined with that of the modern world and most famously with the life of one man, Alan Turing. How did this device, which first appeared a mere 50 years ago, come to structure and dominate our lives so totally? An enlightening mini-biography of a brilliant but troubled man.

Documents the innovations of a group of eccentric geniuses who developed computer code in the mid-20th century as part of mathematician Alan Turin's theoretical universal machine idea, exploring how their ideas led to such developments as digital television, modern genetics and the hydrogen bomb.

The story of the jet engine has everything: genius, tragedy, heroism, a world war, the individual vs. the state, and an idea that would change the world. Frank Whittle always maintained that he was held back by a lack of government support. At the very moment in 1943 when his invention was unveiled to the world, his company, Power Jets, was forcibly nationalised. Yet Whittle's brilliance, charm and charisma helped him recruit major support from the British government and the RAF, who gave him the green light to build a jet engine at a time when to do so made little sense. Here is a story of what pushing technology to its limits can achieve - and the effect that such achievement can have on those involved.

Having escaped domestic servitude in Germany by teaching herself to sing, and established a career in England, Caroline Herschel learned astronomy while helping her brother William, then Astronomer Royal. Soon making scientific discoveries in her own right, she swept to international scientific and popular fame. She was awarded a salary by George III in 1787 – the first woman in Britain to make her living from science. But, as a woman in a male-dominated world, Herschel's great success was achieved despite constant frustration of her ambitions. Drawing on original sources – including Herschel's diaries and her fiery letters – Claire Brock tells the story of a woman determined to win independence and satisfy her astronomical ambition.

When Nicolaus Copernicus claimed that the Earth was not stationary at the centre of the universe but circled the Sun, he brought about a total revolution in the sciences and consternation in the Church. Copernicus’ theory demanded a new physics to explain motion and force, a new theory of space, and a completely new conception of the nature of our universe. He also showed for the first time that a common-sense view of things isn’t necessarily correct, and that mathematics can and does reveal the true nature of the material world. As John Henry reveals, from his idea of a swiftly moving Earth Copernicus sowed the seed from which science has grown to be a dominant aspect of modern culture, fundamental in shaping our understanding of the workings of the cosmos.

In 1936, when he was just twenty-four years old, Alan Turing wrote a remarkable paper in which he outlined the theory of computation, laying out the ideas that underlie all modern computers. This groundbreaking and powerful theory now forms the basis of computer science. In Turing's Vision, Chris Bernhardt explains the theory, Turing's most important contribution, for the general reader. Bernhardt argues that the strength of Turing's theory is its simplicity, and that, explained in a straightforward manner, it is eminently understandable by the nonspecialist. As Marvin Minsky writes, "The sheer simplicity of the theory's foundation and extraordinary short path from this foundation to its logical and surprising conclusions give the theory a mathematical beauty that alone guarantees it a permanent place in computer theory." Bernhardt begins with the foundation and systematically builds to the surprising conclusions. He also views Turing's theory in the context of mathematical history, other views of computation (including those of Alonzo Church), Turing's later work, and the birth of the modern computer. In the paper, "On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem," Turing thinks carefully about how humans perform computation, breaking it down into a sequence of steps, and then constructs theoretical machines capable of performing each step. Turing wanted to show that there were problems that were beyond any computer's ability to solve; in particular, he wanted to find a decision problem that he could prove was undecidable. To explain Turing's ideas, Bernhardt examines three well-known decision problems to explore the concept of undecidability; investigates theoretical computing machines, including Turing machines; explains universal machines; and proves that certain problems are undecidable, including Turing's problem concerning computable numbers.

Mobile phones are a ubiquitous technology with a fascinating history. There are now as many mobile phones in the world as there are people. We carry them around with us wherever we go. And while we used to just speak into them, now mobiles are used to do all kinds of tasks, from talking to twittering, from playing a game to paying a bill. Jon Agar takes the mobile to pieces, tracing what makes it work, and puts it together again, showing how it was shaped in different national contexts in the United States, Europe, the Far East and Africa. He tells the story from the early associations with cars and the privileged, through its immense popular success, to the rise of the smartphone. Few scientific revolutions affect us in such a day-to-day way as the development of the mobile phone. Jon Agar's deft history explains exactly how this revolution has come about - and where it may lead in the future.