Within our lifetime, scientific advances have fundamentally changed our world.

This book describes scientific advances in five areas that changed the course of humanity, and set the stage for our generation and those to follow to play out our lives. These advances underpinned technological revolutions, and transformed some of our most basic notions of how the world works.

• Aircraft and the air transport revolution
• Nuclear energy: Mankind's saviour or curse?
• Relativity and the nature of time and space
• The electricity, electronics and digital...