Marcelo Gleiser begins by providing a broad, highly accessible outline of philosophical and scientific ideas about the universe through the last twenty-five centuries, from the ancient universal creation myths to contemporary theories on an ever-expanding universe. He also explores the lives and work of history's greatest scientists, including Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Einstein, and Stephen Hawking. By exploring how scientists have unlocked the secrets of gravity, electromagnetism, time, and space, Gleiser offers fresh perspective on the debate between science and faith.

Marcelo Gleiser writes as a scientist who believes in more than just one approach to life's most enduring questions and views science as an endless process of discovery of the world both around us, and within.