contents

Playing with the Universe

The Beginnings of Things

The Unpaired Spinning Electron

Parking in the Shadow of Magnetism’s Forgotten Man

Into Whose Embrace Iron Leaps

Revolutions on Paper

The Earth’s Magnetic Soul

Voyage into the Underworld

The Greatest Scientific Undertaking the World Had Ever Seen

The Rock That Turned the World Upside Down

Experiment in Copenhagen

A Very Intimate Relationship

Jars Full of Lightning

The Apothecary’s Son

The Bookbinder’s Apprentice

Magnets Making Currents

The Lines That Fill the Air

The Contorting Gyre

Shocks Inside the Earth

Pharaohs, Fairies, and a Tar-Paper Shack

Zebra Skins Under the Sea

At the Outer Edge of the Dynamo

Anomaly to the South

The Worst Physics Movie Ever

The Great Hazardous Spinning Sphere of Sodium

Horrors the Lights Foretold

The Cost of Catastrophe

Trout Noses and Pigeon Beaks

A Suit of Stiff Black Crayon

Selected Bibliography

Acknowledgments

About the Author