Science is no quiet life. Imagination, creativity, ambition, and conflict are as vital and abundant in science as in artistic endeavors. In this collection of essays, the Nobel Prize-winning protein chemist Max Perutz writes about the pursuit of scientific knowledge, which he sees as an enterprise providing not just new facts but cause for reflection and revelation, as in a poem or painting. Max Perutz's essays explore a remarkable range of scientific topics with the lucidity and precision Perutz brought to his own pioneering work in protein crystallography. He has been hailed as an author who "makes difficult subjects intelligible and writes with the warmth, humanity, and broad culture which has always characterized the great men of science." Of his previous collection of essays, a reviewer said "They turn the world of science and medicine into a marvelous land of adventure which I was thrilled to explore in the company of this wise and human [writer]." Readers of this volume can journey to the same land, with the same delight.