The collective mind of humanity has made extraordinary progress in its quest to understand how the current richness of the physical world has emerged, and Baggott, with his characteristic lucidity and erudition, has provided an enthralling account of this wonderful and still unfolding intellectual journey. Peter Atkins, Nearly 14 billion years ago, our universe emerged; the fundamental forces split apart, atoms, stars, and galaxies formed, and our Sun, with its planets, condensed from a cloud of nuclear debris. One planet, steadied by its Moon, formed deep oceans of water, within which life arose, life grew complex, and, despite several catastrophic extinctions, became more and more diverse, Amid the many creatures that have evolved, one form of ape developed the consciousness to look around at the world and wonder how it come to be. There have been many remarkable creation stories, but none to match what science has painstakingly discovered about the world. In this book, Jim Baggott distils current thinking across the sciences into a single account of our origins, as best we know it today, from the Big Bang to the beginnings of human consciousness. There is no such thing as an 'authorized' or 'official' version of the scientific story of creation. But if there was, then it might look something like this. Book jacket.