Scientific method reigns supreme as a tool for understanding the universe; this masterly synthesis surveys what we have learned so far. Isaac Asimov, wrote Time magazine in 1988, had an extraordinary gift for producing explanatory works which are "a model of clarity, making difficult subjects accessible to the common reader". Only he could put across Einstein"s theories (without oversimplification) and sum up in a single volume an enormous range of information from the fields of biology and physics - from bacteria to dinosaurs, from sub-atomic particles to immense galaxies. Here are definitive discussions of rockets and robots, quarks and quasars, oncogenes and intelligent machines, immune reactions and genetic engineering. The result is exciting, authoritative and readable, an ideal "initiation into the magnificent world of science".