What does a scientist do? How does one become a scientist? Why is science important? This book offers a humorous, but critical commentary on the trials and tribulations facing scientists and engineers today, and on the joys and frustrations of research. It advises how to get a job, to publish and to win major prizes, and points the way to vast, unexplored spaces that await the adventurous challengers of convention, and to the momentous discoveries that will transform people's lives in the future. Written in an unpatronizing style, the book also shows how some of mankind's great problems - the push of population, environmental pollution, disease and starvation - can be alleviated, and how everyone can play a part. It shows why diversity is vital to people's well-being, and how mankind can survive the severe storms that lie ahead by combining unconstrained scientific originality with industrial ingenuity in a novel way.