Fascinating adventures in the lives and achievements of twenty one great scientists who figure in this book afford the reader to see the ball of progress rolling over a period of two thousands years. The series of human stories told here, so intimate and appealing in their content, as they unfold the struggles and sufferings, triumphs and defeats, and hopes and fears of the savants are vastly more stimulating to the imagination than are the classics. When the earth seemed old and faith grew silly and reason cold, it was they who in their sleepless vigil discovered that the world was young. In the words of the authors of this book: ??rom candlelight to satellite ?