The epic story of how science went "big" and the forgotten genius who started it all--"entertaining, thoroughly researched...partly a biography, partly an account of the influence of Ernest Lawrence's great idea, partly a short history of nuclear physics and the Bomb" (The Wall Street Journal).

Since the 1930s, the scale of scientific endeavor has grown exponentially. The first particle accelerator could be held in its creator's lap, while its successor grew to seventeen miles in circumference and cost ten billion dollars. We have invented the atomic bomb, put man on the moon, and...