What is life? Where do we come from & how did we evolve? What is the universe & how was it formed? What is the nature of the material world? How does it work? How & why do we think? What does it mean to be human? How do we know? There are many different versions of our creation story This book tells the version according to modern science It is a unique account starting at the Big Bang & travelling right up to the emergence of humans as conscious intelligent beings 138 billion years later Chapter by chapter it sets out the current state of scientific knowledge the origins of space & time; energy mass & light; galaxies stars & our sun; the habitable earth & complex life itself Drawing together the physical & biological sciences Baggott recounts what we currently know of our history highlighting the questions science has yet to answer