Mixed in with the historical figures in this book are some ordinary people, the kind whose lives have been torn apart by warfare through the ages and to whom the book should be dedicated. Their names and many of the events described are, of course, fictitious; I was not present, for example, in Richard Wagner's bedroom on the morning of 5 January 1871, nor did I overhear (though I might have done) what Einstein said to Marie Curie on a terrace in Geneva in 1926. A painting can be more valid than a photograph, however, and that is the way I look at history.

-- PM

Peter Mason is known for his lively radio programmes with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Science Unit and for his books Genesis to Jupiter, Cauchu - the Weeping Wood and The Light Fantastic.

His research career began at the age of eleven, when he silvered copper coins for his friends, and it almost terminated in the same year with an unexpectedly effetive experiment on the combustion of hydrogen.

Graduating from London University during the war, he worked on quartz crystals for radar sets to be used in the invasion of Normandy. As soon as the war ended, he changed to more peaceful avenues of research, physical problems involved in buildings and roads, in rubbers and plastics. A growing interest in biological molecules took him to the CSIRO in Australia to study the proteins in wool, and in 1966 he was invited to the foundation chair of physics in Macquarie University.

Peter Mason is vice-president of the Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering, and a member of Scientists against Nuclear Arms. His current research lies in trying to find how the cells of the brain control the temperature of the human body. He has been known to claim himself as the best footballer among the biophysiists and the best biophysicist among the footballers.

-- by Penguin Books (1984)