"Amazing... If you've been searching for a basic text on how the atom works, this is it." --Booklist

"A masterpiece."--Omni

The legendary Isaac Asimov starts what is perhaps the most fascinating of all his books with a simple query: how finely can a piece of matter be divided? But like many simple questions, this one leads us on a far-flung quest for a final answer, a search that becomes a series of beautifully structured building blocks of knowledge.

It begins with the earliest speculations and investigations by the Greeks and Romans, and then, step...