Traditional science tries to answer the question: How does complexity arise in nature? But, say Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart in their exhilarating book, the more interesting question is: Why is there any simplicity?

Beginning with a guided tour of the Islands of Truth that tells us everything we need to know about science from Newton to the present, the authors dive into the Oceans of Ignorance that surround them - turning conventional science on its head and putting it in a larger context. Provocative and controversial, their approach enables us to look at the world in a startling new way.