CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

PART I LOST IN THE COSMOS

1 How to Build a Universe

2 Welcome to the Solar System

3 The Reverend Evanss Universe

PART II THE SIZE OF THE EARTH

4 The Measure of Things

5 The Stone-Breakers

6 Science Red in Tooth and Claw

7 Elemental Matters

PART III ANEW AGE DAWNS

8 Einsteins Universe

9 The Mighty Atom

10 Getting the Lead Out

11 Muster Marks Quarks

12 The Earth Moves

PART IV DANGEROUS PLANET

13 Bang!

14 The Fire Below

15 Dangerous Beauty

PART V LIFE ITSELF

16 Lonely Planet

17 Into the Troposphere

18 The Bounding Main

19 The Rise of Life

20 Small World

21 Life Goes On

22 Good-bye to All That

23 The Richness of Being

24 Cells

25 Darwins Singular Notion

26 The Stuff of Life

PART VI THE ROAD TO US

27 Ice Time

28 The Mysterious Biped

29 The Restless Ape

30 Good-bye

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

The physicist Leo Szilard once announced to his friend Hans Bethe that he was thinking of keeping a diary: "I dont intend to publish. Iam merely going to record the facts for the information of God.""Dont you think God knows the facts?" Bethe asked.

"Yes," said Szilard.

"He knows the facts, but He does not know this version of the facts."

-Hans Christian von Baeyer,Taming the Atom