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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.

Table of contents

	Preface	ix
1	The Anaesthetic of Familiarity	1
2	Drawing Room of Dukes	15
3	Barcodes in the Stars	38
4	Barcodes on the Air	66
5	Barcodes at the Bar	83
6	Hoodwink'd With Faery Fancy	114
7	Unweaving the Uncanny	145
8	Huge Cloudy Symbols of A High Romance	180
9	The Selfish Cooperator	210
10	The Genetic Book of the Dead	235
11	Reweaving the World	257
12	The Balloon of the Mind	286
	Selected Bibliography	314
	Index	325