Science is about discovery, a journey towards knowledge. With authors as diverse as Galileo and Lewis Carroll, the extracts featured in this anthology span centuries and continents; they include startling revelations that changed the way we think and tackle more prosaic questions such as why the sea is salty; they consider the natural beauty of the snowflake and the man-made wonder of the first computer. What links them all is a desire to understand, explain and enrich the world, and the ability to communicate this in original, clear and engaging prose.

Author Biography

Richard Hamblyn is the author of Terra: Tales of the Earth, The Invention of Clouds, which won the 2002 Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, and The Cloud Book, published in association with the Met Office. He lives in London.