"Original. . . . Heartfelt. . . . Illuminating. . . . Lightman writes with his characteristic, unmannered leanness. His style takes something from the scientists who 'want to hear that call of certain truth, that clear note of a struck bell.'" --St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"A fine introduction to the excitement and pleasures of science by a scientist who is a humanist in the noblest sense of the word."--Los Angeles Times
"This slender volume mixes insightful scientific biographies with revealing autobiographical accounts and leavens them both with clearly told physics lessons for lay readers." --The Boston Globe
"Wonderfully perceptive. . . . Finely chiseled essays." --Scientific American