An engaging biography that captures the excitement of the early days of nuclear physics, Ernest Rutherford tells the story of the down-to-earth New Zealander who became one of the foremost pioneers of subatomic physics. Rutherford's achievements were numerous and included:
* Inventing a detector for electromagnetic waves
* Discovering the existence of alpha and beta rays in uranium radiation
* Creating (with Frederick Soddy) the "disintegration theory" of radioactivity, which regards radioactive phenomena as atomic -- not molecular -- processes
* Demonstrating that the...

How does the physics we know today - a highly professionalised enterprise, inextricably linked to government and industry - link back to its origins as a liberal art in Ancient Greece? What is the path that leads from the old philosophy of nature and its concern with humankind's place in the universe to modern massive international projects that hunt down fundamental particles and industrial laboratories that manufacture marvels?
J. L. Heilbron's fascinating history of physics introduces us to Islamic astronomers and mathematicians, calculating the size of the earth whilst their caliphs...