'A spectacularly fine and successful work of its kind. It is based on vast learning. It communicates scientific problems and investigations with command, clarity, expertise, and unflagging energy. I found it a deeply absorbing read. Certain narrative passages are quite brilliant. Gribbin knows how to make science come alive, without hype or melodrama. This is partly because he is a past-master of the thumbnail-sketch biography. So many scientists here come alive! I know no other up-to-date single-volume history of science of this kind. I feel sure it will have a wide and enthusiastic general-reader audience' - Roy Porter