In this amazing "Cook's tour" of physics over the past 100 years, D. Allan Bromley uses the occasion of the centenary of the American Physical Society to reflect upon the growth of physics, its expansion into numerous subdisciplines, the impact physics has had upon modern technology, and the reemergence of the fundamental unity of the discipline in recent years. Hundreds of illustrations, both historical and new, accompany the text.

Bromley conveys much of the excitement and wonder that research in physics generated in the twentieth century and asks what new things may be in store in the next century. He covers such topics as relativity and quantum mechanics, the Manhattan Project, superconductivity, transistors and the electronics revolution, protein folding, the uses of nuclear and atomic physics in biology and medicine, plate tectonics, gravitational radiation, and the expansion of the universe and the Big Bang.