ILLUSTRATIONS

AIP = American Institute of Physics

BAL = Bridgeman Art Library/www.bridgeman.co.uk

NPG = National Portrait Gallery, London

NHMPL = Natural History Museum Picture Library, London

SPL = Science Picture Library, London

Title pages: Optical image of the Omega Nebula. Dr. Juerg Alean/SPL

Introduction

i.1 Section through the earth: illustration by Neil Gower. © Neil Gower

i.2 Saul Steinberg, Untitled, c. 1060. Ink on paper © The Saul Steinberg Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY/DACS, London. Originally published in The New Yorker, September 24, 1060

PART ONE: LOST IN THE COSMOS

p1.1 The Milky Way: illustration by National Geographic Maps. © National Geographic Image Collection

Chapter 1

1.1 Arno Allan Penzias (1033-, left) and Robert Woodrow Wilson (1036–) standing on a radio antenna at the Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, 1065. Physics Today Collection/AIP/SPL

1.2 Coloured temperature map of part of the sky showing variations in the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR), made in 1066 using the Cosmic Anistrophy Telescope in Cambridge. Mullard Radio Astronomy Laboratory/SPL

1.3 Cartoon by Sidney Harris. © ScienceCartoonsPlus.com

1.4 Conceptual image of the Big Bang. Martin Bond/SPL

1.5 Optical image of the Eagle Nebula produced by CCD (charge-coupled device) at the Kitt Peak National Observatory, USA. National Optical Astronomy Observatories/SPL

1.6 Fantastic depiction of the solar system, woodcut from Camille Flammarion, Astronomie populaire, 1880. Private collection/BAL

Chapter 2

2.1 Percival Lowell (1855–1016) in the observer’s chair of the 61-centimetre (24-inch) refracting telescope, Flagstaff, Arizona. Lowell Observatory

2.2 Clyde Tombaugh (1006–07) at work at the Lowell Observatory. SPL

2.3 “Wonders of the Heavens” cigarette card. Mary Evans Picture Library 30–31.

2.4 Artist’s impression of Charon seen from Pluto. David A. Hardy, Futures: 50 Years in Space/SPL

2.5 Halley’s comet: woodcut from Hartmann Schedel, Liber chronicarum mundi (Nuremberg Chronicle), Nuremberg, 1403. Heritage Image Partnership

2.6 Launch of the Voyager 1 spacecraft, 5 September 1077. NASA/SPL 35.

2.7 Artwork of the solar system. Detlev van Ravenswaay/SPL

2.8 Comets, mid-nineteenth-century lithograph. Science Museum Pictorial.

2.9 “The Man From Mars” by Frank R. Paul in Fantastic Adventures, May 1030. Mary Evans Picture Library

Chapter 3

3.1 The sky at night. © Anglo-Australian Observatory/photo David Malin

3.2 Boy looking at the night sky through a telescope. © Robert Karpa/Masterfile:www.masterfile.com

3.3 Supernova 1087A two months before maximum brightness. © 1988–2002 Anglo-Australian Observatory/photo David Malin

3.4 Fritz Zwicky (1808–1074). Photo by Arnold Lund. Courtesy of the Archives, California Institute of Technology

3.5 Revd Bob Evans (1037-). Photo Timothy Ricketts

3.6 Cartoon by Sidney Harris. © ScienceCartoonsPlus.com

3.7 Anasazi petroglyph, Penasco Blanco, New Mexico. Frank Zullo/SPL

3.8 Hubble telescope image of the Crab Nebula, 31 May 2000. NASA/ESA/STScI/SPL

3.9 View of starfield. Pekka Parvainen/SPL

3.10 Sir Fred Hoyle (1015–2001). A. Barrington Brown/SPL

PART TWO: THE SIZE OF THE EARTH

p2.1 Newton by William Blake, colour print, 1705–1805. © Tate, London 2005

Chapter 4

4.1 Watercolour portrait of Charles Marie de La Condamine (1701–74) by Louis Carrogis Carmontelle, 1760. Musée Condée, Chantilly. Lauros/Giraudon/BAL

4.2a Halley’s diving bell from William Hooper, Rational Recreations, in which the Principles of Numbers and Natural Philosophy are … elucidated by a series of … experiments, 1787. WL

4.2b Portrait of Edmond Halley (1656–1742) attributed to Thomas Murray, c. 1687. The Royal Society of London

4.3 Portrait of Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727) by Sir James Thornhill, 1710. Trinity College, Cambridge/BAL

4.4 Illustration from Jean Theophilus Desaguliers, Mathematical Elements of Natural Philosophy confirm’d by Experiment, 1747. Ann Ronan Picture Library/Heritage Image Partnership

4.5 “The Soundness of Newton’s Laws,” illustration by William Heath Robinson from Illustrations. Private Collection/BAL

4.6 First page of the first chapter of César-François Cassini de Thury, La méridienne de Paris vérifiée par de nouvelles observations, 1744. Académie des Sciences, Paris/BAL

4.7 Illustration from Admiral Antonio de Ulloa, Voyage Historique dAmérique Méridionale, 1752.

4.8 Illustration from Giovanni Battista Riccioli, Almagestum Novum, astronomiam veterem novamque complectens …, 1651. British Library, London

4.9 The transit of Venus viewed from the Einstein Tower in Potsdam by scientist Knud Jahnke, 8 June 2004. Sven Kaestner/AP

4.10 Portrait of Nevil Maskelyne (1732–1811) by Louis van de Puyl, 1785. The Royal Society of London

4.11 Two pages from the journal of Charles Mason (1730–86) and Jeremiah Dixon (1733–70), 15 November 1763 to 11 September 1768. National Archives, Washington

4.12 Obverse and reverse of bronze medal of Charles Hutton (1737–1823) by Benjamin Wyon, 1821. NPG

4.13 Loch Rannoch, looking to Schiehallion. © copyright 2001 Still Digital

4.14 Portrait of Henry Cavendish (1731–1810) by W. Alexander in pen, ink and wash, ninetenth century. Private Collection/BAL

4.15 Benjamin Franklin’s experiments with electricity turned into an eighteenth-century parlour game, contemporary print. Library Company of Philadelphia/BAL

4.16 Apparatus from “Three papers, containing experiments on factitious air.” by Henry Cavendish, Philosophical Transactions, 1766. Wellcome Library, London

Chapter 5

5.1 Portrait of James Hutton (1726–07), 1787, etching by John Kay. Oxford Scientific Archive/Heritage Image Partnership

5.2 The Deluge by John Martin, 1834. © Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection/BAL

5.3 Engraved portrait of John Playfair (1748–1810) by William Nicholson, 1810. NPG

5.4 Meeting of the Geological Society at Somerset Houseby Sir Henry Thomas de la Beche, President of the Society, 1830. Amongst those depicted are de la Beche, Charles Lyell and Roderick Murchison. © Geological Society/NHMPL

5.5 Anonymous portrait of Sir Charles Lyell (1707–1875). © Geological Society/NHMPL

5.6 Engraved portrait of William Buckland (1784–1856) by Thomas Sopwith, 1875. NPG

5.7 Cartoon from Punch, 4 December 1860. Heritage Image Partnership

5.8 “Fossil shells of the Eocene Tertiary Period” from Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology, being an attempt to explain the former changes of the Earth’s surface, vol. 3, 1832–3. © NHMPL

5.9 “Geology and Palaeontology,” c.1880. Oxford Science Archive/Heritage Image Partnership

5.10 Watercolour portrait of Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707–88), by Louis Carrogis Carmontelle, 1760. Musée Condée, Chantilly. Lauros/Giraudon/BAL

5.11 William Thomson, Lord Kelvin (1824–1007). Oxford Science Archive/Heritage Image Partnership

5.12 Advertisement for Kelvinator refrigerators, 1057. Courtesy of the Advertising Archives

Chapter 6

6.1 A selection of the journals of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, 1804–06. American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia

6.2 Illustration of an animal experiment taken from the Comte de Buffon, Histoire Naturelle, 1740–88. Sheila Terry/SPL

6.3 Drawing of the Newburgh mastodon by Rembrandt Peale, 1801. American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia

6.4 Engraved portrait of Baron Georges Léopold Cuvier (1760–1832) after Chollet, 1830. Jean-Loup Charmet/SPL

6.5 Portrait of Mary Anning (1700–1847) by J. Donne, 1847. © Geological Society/NHMPL

6.6a. Portrait of Gideon Mantell (1790–1852) by J. S. Masquerier. The Royal Society of London

6.6b Anonymous portrait of Mary Ann Mantell from Sidney Spokes, Gideon Mantell, 1927. © NHMPL

6.7a, 6.7b Illustrations from Gideon Mantell, Illustrations of the Geology of Sussex …, 1827

6.8 A double-tailed lizard, captured by John Hunter (1728–93) on Belle-Ile. Reproduced by kind permission of the President and Council of the Royal College of Surgeons of England

6.9 Photograph of Sir Richard Owen (1804–92). © NHMPL

6.10 Photograph of Edward Drinker Cope (1840–97) from The Century, vol. 55, issue 1, November 1897. Getty Images

6.11 Photograph of Othniel Charles Marsh (1831–99). © CORDIS

6.12 Casts of dinosaur tracks. © Louie Psihoyos/CORBIS 120–21. Dinosaur gasoline station, Winterhaven, Florida. © Dennis Stock/Magnum Photos

Chapter 7

7.1 Chemical Lectures, etching by Thomas Rowlandson, 1810. Science Museum Pictorial

7.2 Hennig Brand (c.1630–1710), nineteenth-century etching by Emile Ulm. WL

7.3 Portrait of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743–94) and his wife Marie Anne Paulze (1758–1836) by Jacques Louis David, 1788. The Art Archive/Metropolitan Museum of Art/Joseph Martin

7.4 Dr. and Mrs. Syntax, with a party of friends, experimenting with laughing gas, coloured aquatint by Thomas Rowlandson. Wellcome Library, London

7.5 Anonymous portrait of Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford (1753–1814). SPL

7.6 Anonymous portrait of Amadeo Avogadro (1776–1856). SPL

7.7 Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleyev (1834–1907). Novosti/SPL

7.8 Periodic Table; illustration by Neil Gower. © Neil Gower 134–5.

7.8a Densities of the elements at 298K. View 1. One of the “Periodic Landscape” series by Murray Robertson. Images © Murray Robertson 1999–2005

7.9 Photographic plate with comments by Antoine Henri Becquerel (1852–1908), 1896. SPL

7.10 Pierre (1859–1906) and Marie Curie (1867–1934). AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives

7.11 Advertisement for beauty products using radium. Musée Curie, Paris

7.12 Albert Einstein (1879–1955) and Marie Curie in old age. AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives

PART THREE: A NEW AGE DAWNS

p3.1 Interior of the atom smasher at Notre Dame University, March 1941. © Bettmann/CORBIS

Chapter 8

8.1 Josiah Willard Gibbs (1839–1903). AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Brittle Books Collection

8.2 Portrait of Max Planck (1858–1947), oil on photograph. Ullstein/Granger Collection

8.3 Edward Williams Morley (1838–1923), c.1870. Courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives/original from Case Western Reserve University

8.4 Albert Abraham Michelson (1852–1931). Photograph Elmer Taylor, AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives

8.5 Page from the manuscript by Albert Einstein of his Allgemeine Relativitätstheorie, published in 1912. © Sotheby’s/akg-images

8.6 Albert Einstein and his first wife, Mileva, c. 1905. Ann Ronan Picture Library/Heritage Image Partnership

8.7 Albert Einstein. © Jewish Chronicle/Heritage Image Partnership 158–9.

8.8a Artwork illustrating the concept of warped space. Julian Baum/SPL

8.8b Vesto Melvin Slipher (1875–1969) uses a Brashear spectographer to record the first evidence of an expanding universe. Lowell Observatory

8.9 Edwin Hubble (1889–1953) seated at the Newtonian focus of the 100–inch Hooker telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory, California, c. 1925. Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery

8.10 Annie Jump Cannon (1863–1941) and Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1839–1911) outside Harvard College Observatory, from Through Rugged Ways to the Stars by Harlow Shapley, New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1969 Courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Shapley Collection

8.11 Hubble Space Telescope in the space shuttle’s cargo bay. NASA/SPL

Chapter 9

9.1 The Atomium, Brussels. Martin Bond/SPL

9.2 Light micrograph of the freshwater ciliate Paramecium. John Walsh/SPL

9.3 Engraved portrait of John Dalton (1766–84) by J. Stephenson. SPL

9.4 John Dalton’s preserved eyeballs and hair. James King-Holmes/SPL

9.5 Ernest Rutherford (1871–1937, right) in the Cavendish Laboratory. Professor Peter Fowler/SPL

9.6 Artwork of atomic structure. © Digital Art/CORBIS

9.7 Computer graphic of an atom of helium. Kenneth Eward/SPL

9.8a Niels Bohr (1885–1962), 1925. © Bettmann/CORBIS

9.8b Sir Joseph Thomson (1856–1940). AIP/SPL

9.8c Neutron detector apparatus built by James Chadwick (1891–1974). © DK Limited/CORBIS

9.9a James Chadwick. Burrell & Hardman, Liverpool, courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, W. F. Meggers Gallery of Nobel Laureates

9.9b Louis Broglie (1892–1967). AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Brittle Books Collection

9.10a Werner Heisenberg (1901–76), 1927. AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Segrè Collection

9.10b Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961). Francis Simon/AIP/SPL

9.11 Cartoon by Simon Way. www.CartoonStock.com

9.12 Nuclear explosion over Bikini Atoll, 26 March 1954. © CORBIS

Chapter 10

10.1 Rush hour in Mexico City, c. 1986. © Stephanie Maze/CORBIS

10.2 BP ethyl fuel advertisement from the 1930s. Courtesy of the Advertising Archive

10.3 Ethyl fuel pump from the interwar years, Mystic, Connecticut. ©Todd Gipstein/CORBIS

10.4 Thomas Midgley (1889–1944). SPL

10.5 Willard Libby (1908–80), cover of Time. Photo by Time Life Pictures/Time Magazine, Copyright Time Inc./Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

10.6 Arthur Holmes (1890–1965). SPL

10.7 Harrison Scott Brown (1917–86), California Institute of Technology, 1954. © Estate of Francis Bello/SPL

10.8 Clair Patterson (1922–95). Courtesy of the Archives, California Institute of Technology

10.9 Fridge dump, Lewes, Sussex. Tony Page/Ecoscene

Chapter 11

11.1 Excavation of the first tunnel access shaft for the Superconducting Super Collider, Waxahachie, Texas, early 1990s. AP Photo/Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory

11.2 One of the first images of a neutron taken by Irène Curie and Frédéric Joliot in 1932. I. Curie & F. Joliot/SPL

11.3 “Toughest damn atom I ever saw!”: the “Crocker Cracker” cyclotron as portrayed in the student newspaper The California Pelican, 1939. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab

11.4 Streamer chamber photo of particle tracks, obtained by the NA35 experiment at CERN, November 1986. CERN/SPL

11.5Tunnelling machine at CERN. CERN/SPL

11.6 Top to bottom: Richard Feynman (1918–88) at the blackboard. AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Physics Today Collection; at the Theoretical Physics Conference, Particles and Fields, University of Rochester. Linn Duncan/University of Rochester, courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives; lecturing at CERN, 1970. CERN/SPL; lecturing at CERN, 1965. CERN/SPL; lecturing at CERN, 1970. CERN/SPL.

11.7a Murray Gell-Mann (1929-), 1969. AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Physics Today Collection

11.7b Satyendra Bose (1894–1974). SPL

11.7c Leon Lederman (1922-). Fermi National Accelerator/SPL

11.8 The Standard Model

11.9 Andrew Strominger and Cumrun Vafa of the Harvard University Department of Physics illustrating string theory, November 2004. © Rick Friedman/CORBIS

11.10 Saul Steinberg, Untitled, 1958. Ink on board, 20 × 23½ inches © The Saul Steinberg Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY/DACS, London. Originally published in The New Yorker, May 21, 1960

11.11 Edwin Hubble. Sandford Roth/SPL

11.12 Artwork of MACHO dark matter objects. Lynette Cook/SPL

11.13 Artwork of a dark matter halo. Jon Lomberg/SPL

11.14 Cartoon by Sidney Harris. © ScienceCartoonsPlus.com

Chapter 12

12.1 San Andreas Fault, California. © Tim Beam/CORBIS

12.2 Alfred Wegener (1880–1930). SPL

12.3 Illustration of ancient earth. Chris Butler/SPL

12.4 Eduard Suess (1831–1914). SPL

12.5 Mist in the Great Smoky Mountains. © Jay Dickman/CORBIS

12.6 The first guyot, discovered by Harry Hess, 1941. NOAA Central Library

12.7 Laying telegraph cable across the English Channel from Alexis Belloc, La Télégraphie Historique, 1888. Sheila Terry/SPL

12.8 Map of the earth showing tectonic plate boundaries. SPL

12.9 Launch of a weather balloon during Wegener’s expedition to Greenland 1930/31. akg-images

PART FOUR: DANGEROUS PLANET

p4.1 Magma flowing from Mount Etna towards Valle del Bove, 17 January 1992. © Roger Ressmeyer/CORBIS

Chapter 13

13.1 Meteor Crater, near Winslow, Arizona. David Parker/SPL

13.2 Optical image of a meteor track. Pekka Parviainen/SPL

13.3 “Comets and Aerolites”: one of a set of teaching cards published in London, c. 1851. Science Museum Pictorial

13.4 Shower of shooting stars from Amédée Guillemin, Le del, 1877. Detlev van Ravenswaay/SPL

13.5 Computer artwork of the asteroid belt. Roger Harris/SPL

13.6 Luis Alvarez (1911–88). Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory/SPL

13.7 Poster for Meteor, 1979. British Film Institute

13.8 Eugene Shoemaker (1928–97). David Parker/SPL

13.9 Artist’s impression of the comet Shoemaker-Levy impact on Jupiter, July 1994. Julian Baum/SPL

13.10 Computer artwork of a meteor burning up in the Earth’s atmosphere. Michael Dunning/SPL

Chapter 14

14.1 Photo by Charles Weidner of damage caused by the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 published as a postcard. Rykoff Collection/CORBIS 263.

14.1a Ashfall Fossil Beds, 1981. Annie Griffiths Belt/National Geographic Image Collection

14.2 Richard Dixon Oldham (1858–1936). SPL

14.3a Charles Richter (1900–85, far right) looking at a buckled pavement. © copyright California Institute of Technology.

14.3b Beno Gutenberg’s notes with annotations by Charles Richter. © copyright California Institute of Technology.

14.4 Street scene, San Francisco, after the earthquake in 1906. Photo by Arnold Genthe. © CORBIS

14.5 Poster issued by the Japan Earthquake Fund, 1923. © Swim Ink 2, LLC/CORBIS

14.6 Jacket for Hugh Walters, The Mohole Menace, 1968, designed by Cécile Rojer

14.7 Computer model of the earth showing convection patterns in the mantle. Los Alamos National Laboratory/SPL

14.8 Mount St. Helen’s, Washington, after the eruption on 27 March 1980. AP Photo/US Geological Survey

14.9 David Johnston, 17 May 1980. US Geological Survey photo courtesy of Harry Glicken

Chapter 15

15.1 Mountains and Coastline from 36 Views of Mount Fuji by Ando or Utagawa Hiroshige, 1853. Private Collection/BAL

15.2 Lava flowing into the sea, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, June 2001. © Brenda Tharp/CORBIS

15.3 Krakatau erupting, from G. J. Symons The Eruption of Krakatoa, 1888, colour lithograph after a photo. Natural History Museum/BAL

15.4 Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, 1870s, photo by William Henry Jackson. © CORBIS

15.5 Yellowstone Lake, Yellowstone National Park. Wyoming, © Darrell Gulin/CORBIS

15.6 Geyser in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Jeff Vanuga/CORBIS

15.7 “Greetings from Yellowstone Park,” postcard, c. 1939. © Lake County Museum/CORBIS

15.8 Section of highway slumping into Hebgen Lake. © CORBIS

15.9 Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. © Raymond Gehman/CORBIS

PART FIVE: LIFE ITSELF

p5.1 Coloured transmission electron micrograph (TEM) of a single strand of DNA. Science Source/SPL

Chapter 16

16.1 Umberto Pelizzari sets the new world free diving record, 3 November 2001. EPA/Empics

16.2 “Diving Machines” engraved by J. Pass. © National Maritime Museum, London

16.3 Wills’s cigarette card from the “Engineering Wonders” series showing a steel caisson, early twentieth century. Mary Evans Picture Library

16.4a John Scott Haldane (1860–1936) with his breathing apparatus, 1910. Hulton Archive/Getty Images

16.4b J. B. S. Haldane (1892–1964) entering his deep sea diving chamber, 1941. Hans Wild/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

16.5 False-colour computer-generated perspective view of the Cunitz Crater, Venus. NASA/SPL

16.6 British soldiers blinded by mustard gas in France, 1914–18. © Bettmann/CORBIS

16.7 Wine bottle and glass, late-second-century mosaic from Thysdrus, El-Jem, Tunisia. Bardo Museum, Tunis. The Art Archive/Bardo Museum/Dagli Orti

Chapter 17

17.1 Wind vortices in the lee of Guadeloupe taken from the Skylab space station, 1973. Digital Image © 1996 CORBIS; original image courtesy of NASA/CORBIS

17.2 Léon-Philippe Teisserenc de Bort (1855–1913). © National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

17.3 The space shuttle flight deck during re-entry, 30 January 1992. NASA/SPL

17.4 A tornado off the coast of Cyprus, 27 January 2003. Photo Andreas Manolis © Reuters/CORBIS

17.5 Lightning in Arizona. Keith Kent/SPL

17.6 Jet stream over the Red Sea, seen from the Gemini spacecraft, November 1966. Digital Image © 1996 CORBIS; original image courtesy of NASA/CORBIS

17.7 Thermometer made by Casartel of Amsterdam, 1720–50, marked with both Fahrenheit and Florentine scales. Science Museum, London

17.8 Portrait of Gustave-Gaspard de Coriolis (1792–1866) after Jean Roller. Académie des Sciences, Paris/BA

17.9 Portrait of Luke Howard (1772–1864) after John Opie. The National Meteorological Library, Exeter.

17.10 Cloud study by Luke Howard, c. 1808–11. Science Museum Pictorial

17.11 Anonymous engraving of Anders Celsius (1701–44), c. 1730. Science Museum Pictorial

17.12 Coloured scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of the shell of a foraminiferan. Dee Berger/SPL

17.13 Chalk cliffs, near Dover, 1994. Kevin Schafer/CORBIS

Chapter 18

18.1 Light micrograph of an assortment of radiolarians. Alfred Pasieka/SPL

18.2 Dandelion seeds supported by the surface tension. Dr. John Brackenbury/SPL

18.3 First page from the “Journal of HMS Challenger,” 1872, a personal diary by Pelham Aldrich. Royal Geographical Society

18.4 Charles William Beebe (1877–1962) and Otis Barton (1899?–?) and their bathysphere. © Ralph White/CORBIS

18.5 A Fish-Eye View of a Microscopic Tragedy, painting by Else Bostelmann of the sabre-toothed viperfish (much enlarged), published in the National Geographic, December 1934. National Geographic Image Collection

18.6 Auguste Piccard (1884–1962) coming out of the air-lock on board the Trieste. Photo Scoop.

18.7 Deep Submergence Vehicle Alvin. Photo Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

18.8a Hydrothermal vent photographed by Alvin 3,000 metres below sea level. B. Murton/Southampton Oceanography Centre/SPL

18.8b Tubeworms on the ocean floor. © Ralph White/CORBIS

18.9 Blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) in the East Pacific off Mexico. © Phillip Colla/www.oceanlight.com

18.10 Checking the radiation levels at the Hanford Site in Washington State, October 1988. © Roger Ressmeyer/CORBIS

18.11 Giant squid washed up on a beach in Tasmania. Conrad Maufe/Nature Picture Library

18.12 Giant octopus from Félix de Roissy Histoire naturelle des mollusques, 1805. © NHMPL

18.13 Blenny (family Blennidae) emerging from a brain coral, Bonaire, Dutch Antilles. © Alex Smith

18.14 Orange roughy. © NHMPL

18.14a Shark fins for sale in a market in Hong Kong. Jurgen Freund/Nature Picture Library

18.15 Sorting the catch of Atlantic cod, Stellwagen Bank, Massachusetts Bay. © Jeffrey L. Rotman/CORBIS

c.16 Chinstrap penguins rest on a rare blue iceberg, Antarctica. © Bryan & Cherry Alexander

Chapter 19

19.1 Stromatolites in Hamelin Pool, Shark Bay, Western Australia. Georgette Douwma/SPL

19.2 Stanley Miller (1930-) at work in the laboratory, May 1953. © Bettmann/CORBIS

19.3 Computer model of the protein myoglobin. Dr. Tim Evans/SPL.

19.4 Snowflake. Kenneth Libbrecht/SPL

19.5 Fireball meteorite, Wales, September 2003. Jonathan Burnett/SPL

19.6 The Murchison CM2 carbonaceous chondrite. © NHMPL

19.7 Mosaic portrait of Fred Hoyle by Boris Anrep, completed 1952. Reproduced by courtesy of Ben Anrep, photo © The National Gallery, London

19.8 Reconstruction of primeval earth. Chris Butler/SPL

19.9 Light micrograph of a living colony of Gloeocapsa algae. Michael Abby/SPL

19.10 Coloured light micrograph of two strands of Spirulina cyanobacteria. John Reader/SPL

19.11 Light micrograph of fossilized cyanobacteria. Michael Abby/SPL 377.

19.12 Protozoa from Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg, Die Infusionsthierchen als vollkommene Organismen, 1838. British Library

Chapter 20

20.1 Coloured scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus). Eye of Science/SPL

20.2 False-colour transmission electron micrograph (TEM) of a Clostridium perfringens bacterium with endospore. CNRI/SPL

20.3 Coloured scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of eyelash hairs. Steve Gschmeissner/SPL

20.4 Family tree of man from Ernst Heinrich Haeckel, Anthropogenie, oder, Entwicklungsgeschichte des Menschen …, 1874. WL

20.5 Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) with his friend Allers in Italy in 1852. Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS

20.6 Carl Woese (1928–). Photo by Bill Wiegand

20.7 Coloured transmission electron micrograph (TEM) of a section through the bacterium Staphylothermus marinus. Wolfgang Baumeister/SPL

20.8 Carl Woese’s Tree of Life. © Carolina Biological Supply Company

20.9 Professor Ernst Mayr (1905–2005) in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University. © Rick Friedman/CORBIS

20.10 Australian public health information poster produced by Brisbane City Council Department of Health after the 1926/7 dengue epidemic, c. 1928. WL

20.11 Sufferers from the English sweating disease, woodcut from the title-page of Euricius Cordius, Fur die newe, hiervor vnerhorte und erschrocklich todtliche Kranckheyt und schnellen todt, dei English schweyeesucht geant …, 1529. WL

20.12 Reaction of Staphylococcus bacteria to penicillin. John Durham/SPL

20.13 US soldiers wearing gauze masks as a protection against influenza, 1918. SPL

20.14 A woman wearing a flu mask, March 1919. © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS

20.15 Scene in Nembe, Bayelsa, Nigeria, August 2004. © Ed Kashi/CORBIS

20.16 Coloured transmission electron micrograph (TEM) of replicating Ebola virus particles. London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine/SPL

Chapter 21

21.1 Burgess Shale scene; artist’s reconstruction of the sea floor in Cambrian times. © John Sibbick/NHMPL

21.2 Dalmanites myops, a fossil trilobite found in the Wenlock Limestone, Dudley, Worcestershire. © NHMPL

21.3 Charles Doolittle Walcott (1850–1927) at the Burgess Shale site. Photo Smithsonian Institution, Washington

21.4 Pen and wash reconstruction of a Marrella from Walcott’s archive. Photo Smithsonian Institution, Washington

21.5 Reconstruction of a Hallucigenia by Mary Parrish. National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution

21.6 Mawsonite spriggi, a fossil jellyfish. © NHMPL

21.7 Reginald Sprigg (1919–94). Courtesy Marg Sprigg

21.8 Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002), 1981. © Wally McNamee/CORBIS

21.9 Anomalocaris canadensis fossil. © JunYuan Chen

21.10 Reconstruction of Anomalocaris canadensis. © NHMPL

Chapter 22

22.1 Artist’s reconstruction of a Tyrannosaurus rex fleeing from an approaching asteroid. D. van Ravenswaay/SPL

22.2 Petrified logs in the Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona, c.1987. © Tom Bean/CORBIS

22.3 Plankton diatoms, Pleurosigma balticum, Baltic Sea. © Seapics.com

22.4 Artist’s reconstruction of Ichthyostegas in a Devonian landscape. © John Sibbick

22.5 Artist’s reconstruction of a Dimetrodon from Dinosaurs!, issue 60. © De Agostini/NHMPL

22.6 Diorama of the sea bed in the late Ordovician period with models of seaweed, coral, a brachiopod, clam, snail, cephalopod and trilobite. The Field Museum neg. no GEO808ZOc/Ron Tester

22.7 Solar flares, c. 2000. © Royalty-Free/CORBIS

22.8 A chambered nautilus swimming over a coral reef, Papua New Guinea. © Stephen Frink/CORBIS

22.9 Artist’s reconstruction of the Chicxulub impact crater, Yucatan Peninsula. D. van Ravenswaay/SPL

22.10 Entrance hall, American Museum of Natural History, New York. © Louie Psihoyos/CORBIS

Chapter 23

23.1 Reptile specimens collected by Charles Darwin. © NHMPL 432.

23.1a Drawer of shells from Sir Joseph Banks’ collection. © NHMPL

23.2 Anonymous portrait of Robert Brown (1773–1858), c. 1845. © NHMPL

23.2a Toona ciliata, red cedar, collected in Australia by Robert Brown, 1804. © NHMPL

23.3 Portrait of Sir Joseph Banks (1743–1820) by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1771–72. Agnew & Sons, London/BAL

23.4 Clianthus puniceus, parrot’s bill, collected in New Zealand by Sir Joseph Banks and Daniel Carlsson Solander during the Endeavour voyage, 1769. © NHMPL

23.5 Portrait of Carolus Linnaeus (1707–78) after Martin Hoffman. Private Collection/BAL

23.6 Engraving by Thomas Burke after Philip Rienagle of Cupid inspiring plants with love: “And thou, divine LINNAEUS! Trac’d my Reign O’er Trees, and Plants, and Flora’s beauteous Train, Prov’d them obedient to my soft Controul, …,” 1 June 1805. WL

23.7 Title page of Systema Naturae by Carolus Linnaeus, 10^th edition, 1758. © NHMPL

23.8 Watercolour illustration by Georg Dionysius Ehret from Carolus Linnaeus, Systema Naturae, 1736. © NHMPL

23.9 Weevil specimens. © NHMPL

23.10 Terry Erwin fogging trees in the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve, Peru. Mark Moffett/Minden/FLPA

23.11 Coloured scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of the house-dust mite, Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus on fabric. Andrew Syred/SPL

23.12 Light micrograph of a common bdelloid rotifer, rotaria. John Walsh/SPL

23.13 Takahe, New Zealand. © Bruce Coleman Inc.

23.14 Partula mirabilis and Partula mooreana; plate 19 from Studies on the Variation, Distribution, and Evolution of the Genus Partula by Henry Edward Crampton, 1932. © NHMPL

Chapter 24

24.1 Human sperm penetrating an egg, from Lennart Nilsson, A Child is Born, 2003. Albert Bonniers Vorlag AB.

24.2 Computer artwork of a neuron in a network of other nerve cells. Hybrid Medical Animation/SPL

24.2a Computer artwork of a human cell dividing. Christian Darkin/SPL

24.3 Drawings of cork and a flea seen under the microscope, from Robert Hooke, Micrographia, 1665. WL

24.4a The Astronomer by Jan Vermeer, 1668. Louvre, Paris. Lauros/Giraudon/BAL

24.4b Replica of a microscope made by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, c. 1670. Science Museum Pictorial

24.5 Drawing of a homunculus from Nicolaas Hartsoeker, Essay de dioptrique, 1694.

24.6 llustration from the English translation of Theodor Schwann, Microscopical Researches into the Accordance in the Structure and Growth of Animals and Plants, 1847. WL

24.7 Artist’s impression of the inside of an imaginary cell. Francis Leroy/SPL

24.8 Coloured transmission electron micrograph (TEM) of a longitudinal section through healthy cardiac muscle. Steve Gschmeissner/SPL

24.9 Coloured scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of two prostate cancer cells in the final stage of cell division. Steve Gschmeissner/SPL

24.10 Light micrograph of the spicules from unidentified maris sponges. Science Pictures Ltd/SPL

Chapter 25

25.1 Detail of a portrait of Charles Robert Darwin (1809–82) by John Collier, 1883. NPG

25.2 Coloured engraving of HMS Beagle. SPL

25.3a Title page of On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, 1859. © NHMPL

25.3b Notebook kept by Darwin during the voyage of the Beagle. English Heritage

25.4 Delphinus fitzroyi from Charles Darwin, Zoology of the Voyage of HMS Beagle, 1843. © NHMPL

25.5 Illustration by R. T. Pritchett of finches from the Galápagos Islands from Charles Darwin, A Naturalist’s Voyage Round the World, 1889. Mary Evans Picture Library

25.6 Darwin’s study from Karl Pearson, The Life, Letters & Labours of Francis Galton, 1924. Mary Evans Picture Library

25.7 Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913), photo from James Marchant, Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, 1916. WL

25.8a Sir Charles Lyell (1797–1875), photo by Hills & Saunders of Oxford, c. 1855. NPG

25.8b Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817–1911), photo by Henry Maull & George Henry Polyblank, c. 1855. NPG

25.9 Gregor Johann Mendel (1822–84), photo from the Mendelianum, Abbey of St. Thomas, Brno. James King-Holmes/SPL

25.10 Peas used by Gregor Mendel in his experiments; contemporary illustration. Sheila Terry/SPL

25.11 Spurious allelomorphism in sweet peas, from W. Bateson, Mendel’s Principles of Heredity, 1909. © NHMPL

25.12 “Monkeyana” from Punch, 18 May 1861.

25.13 Samuel Wilberforce (1805–73), Bishop of Winchester, carte-de-visite by Caldesi, Blanford & Co. NPG

25.14 Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95), after a photo by Henry Maull & George Henry Polyblank, 1857. NPG

25.15 Child crying, illustration from Charles Darwin, The Expressions of the Emotions in Man and Animals, 1872. WL

25.16 Charles Darwin, cartoon by Linley Sambourne in Punch, 1881. Mary Evans Picture Library

Chapter 26

26.1 Single chromosome. Photoniea

26.2 John Sulston at the Sanger Centre, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus. WL

26.3 Female human chromosome set. Leonard Lessin/FBPA/SPL

26.4 Johann Friedrich Miescher (1844–95). WL

26.5 Coloured transmission electron micrograph (TEM) of a distal fragment of a translation unit from the salivary gland cell of a midge. Dr. Elena Kiseleva/SPL

26.6 Thomas Hunt Morgan (1866–1945), 1922. Photo by A. F. Huettner/courtesy Caltech Archives

26.7 Normal and mutant fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster). Pascal Goetgheluck/SPL

26.7a Oswald Avery (1877–1955). © The Rockefeller University Archives

26.8 Rosalind Franklin (1920–58). © Museum of London

26.9 An X-ray diffraction photograph of DNA obtained by Rosalind Franklin, 1953. SPL

26.10 James Watson (1928-) and Francis Crick (1916–2004) with their DNA model, 1953. A. Barrington Brown/SPL

26.11 Nobel Prize Winners of 1962, left to right: Professor Maurice Wilkins (1916–2004), Dr. Max Perutz (1914–2002), Professor Francis Crick, John Steinbeck, Dr. James Watson and Dr. John Kendrew. © Bettmann/CORBIS

26.12 Anglo-American co-operation on human genome research, scraperboard drawing by Bill Sanderson, 1990. WL

26.13 Black widow spiders mating. James H. Robinson/SPL

26.14 Foot and mouth disease protein. AlfredPasieka/SPL

PART SIX: THE ROAD TO US

p6.1 Field by Antony Gormley, 1991, Old City Jail, Spoleto Festival, Charleston, South Carolina. © ART on FILE/CORBIS

Chapter 27

27.1 Frost Fair on the Thames with Old London Bridge in the Distance, formerly attributed to Jan Wyck, c. 1685. © Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection/BAL

27.2 Erratic boulder, Yosemite National Park, California. Tony Craddock/SPL

27.3 Louis Agassiz (1807–73). © Bettmann/CORBIS

27.4 Ladies and guides on the Mer de Glace, Mont Blanc, near Chamonix, c. 1886. Photo by F & G. Charnaux. © Alpine Club

27.5 James Croll (1821–90). SPL

27.6 Milutin Milankovitch (1879–1958). © Vasko Milankovitch

27.7 Franz Josef Glacier, South Island, New Zealand. © Abbie Enock; Travel Ink/CORBIS

27.8 Aerial view of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. © CORBIS

27.9 Glacier in Prince William Sound. © Neil Rabinowitz/CORBIS

27.10 Ice core samples from Greenland in a freezer in Denver, Colorado, December 1993. © Roger Ressmeyer/CORBIS

27.11 Chart of the Gulf Stream by Benjamin Franklin and Timothy Folger, 1769. Library of Congress/SPL

27.12 Iceberg close to Ross Island, West Antarctica. © arcticphoto.co.uk

Chapter 28

28.1 Reconstruction of Homo erectus by John Gurche. © John Gurche

28.2 Female Neandertal skull from Krapina in the Balkans. Kenneth Garrett/National Geographic Image Collection

28.3 Eugène Dubois (1858–1940). © NMNH, Leiden, The Netherlands

28.4 Professor Raymond Arthur Dart (1893–1988) and the Taung specimen of Australopithecus africanus. John Reader/SPL

28.4a Robert Broom (1866–1951) in the field in South Africa. SPL

28.5 A Chinese apothecary’s stall. WL

28.6 Hominid skulls, left to right: Adapis, Proconsul, Australopithecus africanus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, homo sapiens sapiens, Cro-Magnon skull. Pascal Goetgheluck/SPL

28.7 Donald Johanson (1943-) with a plaster cast of Lucy’s skull, March 1981. © Bettmann/CORBIS

28.7a Skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis, known as “Lucy.” John Reader/SPL

28.8 Reconstruction of Lucy by John Gurche. © John Gurche

28.9 Footprints in fossilized volcanic ash, Laetoli, Tanzania. John Reader/SPL

28.10 Diorama of male and female Homo afarensis. © American Museum of Natural History

28.11 Maeve Leakey (1942–). © Leakey Foundation

28.12 Skull of Kenyanthropus platyops. F. Spoor/National Museums of Kenya

28.13 Aerial view of the Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya. © Galen Rowell/CORBIS

28.14 Acheulean culture tools found at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. John Reader/SPL

28.15 Richard Leakey (1944-) on the cover of Time, 7 November 1977. Photo by Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images.

28.16 Kamoya Kimeu searching for hominid remains. © Kenneth Garrett/National Geographic Society Image Collection

Chapter 29

29.1 Earliest Homo sapiens skull found at Qafzeh, near Nazareth. Kenneth Garrett/National Geographic Image Collection

29.2a Acheulean flint tool, c. 500,000 BC, St. Acheul, France. The Art Archive/Musée Boucher de Perthes, Abbeville/Dagli Orti

29.2b Choppers from the Olduvai Gorge, one million years old. The Ancient Art & Architecture Collection

29.3 Dunes in Mungo National Park, Australia. © Dave G. Houser/CORBIS

29.4 Skeleton of Mungo Man. Jim Bowler/published with permission of traditional elders

29.5 Mandible of early hominid, Klasies river mouth, Republic of South Africa. Kenneth Garrett/National Geographic Image Collection

29.6 Neandertal flint scraper, Mousterian culture. Longham Pit, Dorset. The Ancient Art and Architecture Collection

29.7 Qafzeh human remains, near Nazareth. Pascal Goetgheluck/SPL

29.8 Anonymous artist’s reconstruction of a female Neanderthal. Photo by Express/Express/Getty Images

29.9 Anonymous artist’s reconstruction of a male Neanderthal. © Chris Hellier/CORBIS

29.10 Skeleton of a four-year-old child, Portugal. © Instituto Portuguěs de Arqueologia/José Paulo Ruas

29.11 “The Search for Adam & Eve,” Newsweek, 11 January 1988. © Newsweek International

29.12 Reconstruction by John Sibbick of Australopithecus africanus in the Rift Valley. © John Sibbick/NHMPL

29.13 View of the Great Rift Valley, Masai Mara National Park, Kenya. © Sue Cunningham Photographic/Alamy

29.14 Louis (1903–72) and Mary Leakey (1913–96) with their son, Philip, looking for fossil remains, Olduvai Gorge, 1960. Robert Sisson/National Geographic Image Collection

29.15 Rick Potts of the Smithsonian Institute holds a hand axe made by Homo erectus, Olorgesailie, Kenya. Kenneth Garrett/National Geographic Image Collection

Chapter 30

30.1 The Dodo by Hans Savery, 1651. Oxford University Museum of Natural History/BAL

30.2 Head and foot of a dodo. Oxford Museum of Natural History

30.3 Excavating a baby mammoth from the tundra in Siberia, 1977. Novosti

30.4 Steller’s sea cow from Tim F. Flannery and Peter Schouten, Astonishing Animals, © Peter Schouten, 2004, published by the Text Publishing Company Pty Ltd, Melbourne 2004

30.5 Stephens Island wren from Astonishing Animals, as above

30.6 Portrait of Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild (1868–1937) by Arpad Koppay, Baron von Dretoma, c. 1910. The Zoological Musem, Tring. © NHMPL

30.7 Hugh Cuming photo by Henry Maull & George Henry Polyblank, c. 1855. NPG

30.8 A male specimen of the great kiskadee (Pitangus sulphuratus), collected 1918, held at the Walter Rothschild Museum of Zoology at Tring. © NHMP

30.9 “Native Tiger of Tasmania shot by Weaver 1869.” Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery

30.10 Whole earth as seen from Apollo 16, April 1972. NASA/SPL