Did Newton "unweave the rainbow" by reducing it to its prismatic colors as Keats contended? Did he in other words diminish beauty? Far from it says acclaimed scientist Richard Dawkins; Newton's unweaving is the key to much of modern astronomy and to the breathtaking poetry of modern cosmology. Mysteries don't lose their poetry because they are solved: the solution often is more beautiful than the puzzle uncovering deeper mysteries. With the wit insight and spellbinding prose that have made him a best-selling author Dawkins takes up the most important and compelling topics in modern science from astronomy and genetics to language and virtual reality combining them in a landmark statement of the human appetite for wonder. This is the book Richard Dawkins was meant to write: a brilliant assessment of what science is (and isn't) a tribute to science not because it is useful but because it is uplifting.