Once upon a time it was quite easy to get a big picture of the world of science. Even someone with a general interest could have an overview of all that science had to offer. But over the last 100 years, everything has changed. The discipline has grown out of proportion; individuals can’t hope to keep up, and scientists are confined to a tiny area of speciality.

What Robert Matthews, science correspondent of The Sunday Telegraph, has done is to take 25 of the most significant areas in modern science and explains them. We meet in breathless fashion everything from game theory to GM crops, from quantum mechanics to plate tectonics and relativity.

The book also covers major personalities in the history of science, from World War II code-breaker Alan Turing and his test for artificial intelligence to modern scientists and theories such as Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking, the selfish gene and quantum mechanics.

Simply put, it is a useful taster when you want to know where to head off. It’s not a bad idea to get hold of this book to get a quick background in the topics, before diving in more deeply to specific zones.