Description:

Splendidly illuminating... Imprinted with Lightman's scientific wonderment and poetic grace." --"San Francisco Chronicle" "Original. . . . Heartfelt. . . . Illuminating. . . . Lightman writes with his characteristic, unmannered leanness. His style takes something from the scientists who 'want to hear that call of certain truth, that clear note of a struck bell.'" --"St. Louis Post-Dispatch" "A fine introduction to the excitement and pleasures of science by a scientist who is a humanist in the noblest sense of the word."--"Los Angeles Times" "This slender volume mixes insightful scientific biographies with revealing autobiographical accounts and leavens them both with clearly told physics lessons for lay readers." --"The Boston Globe" "Wonderfully perceptive. . . . Finely chiseled essays." --"Scientific American" "From the Trade Paperback edition.