Describes how some of the most important scientific discoveries and theories came about and offers insights into the lives of the scientists who made the contributions. Source other than Library of Congress.

Includes index.

Scientific discoveries: where and when -- Seeing the invisible : Antonie van Leeuwenhoek -- A cure for a killer disease : Louis Pasteur -- Discovering penicillin : Alexander Fleming -- The fight against disease : Gertrude Elion -- Mapping the body : William Harvey -- The secret of life : Francis Crick and James Watson -- Laws of the universe : Isaac Newton -- Experiments in space and time : Albert Einstein -- Investigating radioactivity : Marie Curie -- The periodic table : Dmitri Mendeleev -- The power of electricity : Michael Faraday -- Naming the natural world : Carl Linnaeus -- The theory of evolution : Charles Darwin -- Unmasking dinosaurs : Richard Owen -- Drifting continents : Alfred Wegener -- Defining our solar system : Nicolaus Copernicus -- Looking into space : Galileo Galilei -- Discovering galaxies : Edwin Hubble -- The big bang : Georges Lemaître -- Glossary.