This book contains the diary he kept from 1939 until 1945, recording work in the laboratories and his own wider role in the planning and organisation of the scientific war effort, against the background of the progress of the war problems of members of his staff. A recurring theme is the development and production in the laboratories of more than 300,000 thermionic valves of 45 new types.

The history of communications is extensive and this book explains how communications have evolved from the time of Aeschylus's Agamemnon (458 BC) to circa 1940. It discusses the essential factors - technical, political, social, economic and general - which have enabled modern communications to evolve from early primitive stages of development.

This unusual book traces the history of public and technical exhibitions, from their origins in the late 18th Century to present day, and, particularly, how they have reflected the progress of science and technology especially electrical technology). Not only does the author show how electrical innovation and manufacture have been presented to the wider public through this period, but he also shows how the exhibitions themselves have required technological advice.

Following the success of Volume 1, which covered short-wave broadcasting through to the end of the Cold War, this new book covers the many and varied developments that have taken place since then, set in the context of the political changes that have taken place. Propaganda broadcasting on the shortwaves is now widely recognised as an overt strategy in conflict but is also publicly credited with having played a major role in 'winning' the Cold War.

A fascinating account of the origins and development, of the technology that has transformed telecommunications and broadcasting and created the Internet.

Lord Kelvin (William Thomson), arguably Britain's most eminent scientist after Newton, spent much of his life in work which led to the development of today's electrical units and standards. Despite his influence, there are few biographies of stature (largely due to the abstruse nature of much of his technical research). This treatment concentrates upon his work in three phases; discovery of the fundamental concepts and coding them into universal laws, leading the adoption of the metric system, and securing worldwide use of units and standards (now the IEC system).

Oliver Heaviside (1850-1925) was one of the great pioneers of electrical science. His ideas led to huge advances in communications and now form much of the bedrock of electrical engineering - every textbook and every college course bears his stamp. Despite having little formal education he created the mathematical tools that were to prove essential to the proper understanding and use of electricity. At first his ideas were thought to be outrageous and he had to battle long and hard against ignorance, prejudice and vested interests to get them accepted. Yet they are now so much a part of everyday electrical science that they are simply taken for granted and our great debt to him is rarely acknowledged. Caring nothing for social or mathematical conventions, he lived a fiercely independent life, much of the time close to poverty. His writings reveal a personality like no other and are laced with wickedly irreverent humour; he is by far the funniest author of scientific papers. Basil Mahon combines a compelling account of Heaviside's life with a powerful insight into his scientific thinking and the reasons for its enduring influence.

In the late 1920s, John Logie Baird - considered to be the inventor of television - was experimenting with 'phonovision' in which he attempted to record television signals onto gramophone discs. His efforts were mostly unsuccessful and this technology largely forgotten, until the 1980s when Don McLean came across the discs and set about restoring them with modern computer-based techniques. The recovery of these images gives us a fascinating glimpse of what the earliest television was like (before official TV services started). As well as helping to explain a poorly understood period of television history, this unique book sheds new light on the activities of John Logie Baird and the definition and invention of television itself.

This book covers the development of space technology in the late 1950s and 1960s from the launch of Sputnik 1 in October 1957 to the landing of men on the moon in 1969. The text begins by looking at the challenge of getting into space and the development of the launch of the space launch vehicle, and moves on to discussion of unmanned satellites and spaceprobes, and the first capsules deployed in Earth orbit and the Apollo missions to the moon.

From the first notions of 'seeing by electricity' in 1878 through the period to Baird's demonstration of television in 1926 and up to 1940, when war brought the advance of the technology to a temporary halt, the development of TV gathered about it a tremendous history. In this meticulous and deeply researched book, Burns presents a balanced, thorough history of television to 1940, considering the factors technical, financial and social which influenced and led to the establishment of many of the world's high-definition TV broadcasting services. Highly illustrated throughout, this is a major book in the study of history of science, technology and media.