"Atom - the official tie-in with the highly acclaimed BBC TV series of the same name - is the true story of a discovery with a strong claim to be the most important in the history of science. It is a tale riddled with jealousy, rivalry, missed opportunities and moments of genius." "John Dalton gave us the first picture of the atom in the early 1800s. Almost 100 years later came one of the most important experiments in scientific history, by the young misfit New Zealander Ernest Rutherford. He showed that the atom consisted mostly of space, and in doing so turned 200 years of classical physics on its head." "It was a brilliant Dane, Niels Bohr, who made the next great leap - into the incredible world of quantum theory. Yet he and a handful of other revolutionary young scientists weren't prepared for the shocks that Nature had up her sleeve."--BOOK JACKET.