1. The age of the Earth: an age-old question. Who thought what and when, and why -- 2. Atoms old and new. From Democritus to Rutherford -- 3. The banker who lost his head. Lavoisier, gunpowder, revolution, and the birth of modern chemistry -- 4. From particles to molecules, with a note on homoeopathy Dalton, Avogadro, Cannizzaro; why did it take so long for the penny to drop? -- 5. The discovery of the noble gases - what's so new about neon? A tiny difference in density leads to a whole new group of elements -- 6. Science, war, and morality; the tragedy of Fritz Haber. Ammonia, explosives, fertiliser, gas warfare, and the most unintended of consequences -- 7. The ozone hole story - a mystery with three suspects. Volcano, refrigerator, or jet plane? -- 8. Rain gauge, thermometer, calendar, warning. What a stalagmite tells us about climate past; what history tells us about climate future -- 9. Making metal. Iron from the sky. Philistines and Phoenicians. Domestic uses of arsenic. Eros in Piccadilly. The jet age -- 10. In praise of uncertainty. Unavoidable, and a good thing too -- 11. Everything is fuzzy. And the smaller, the fuzzier. Waves are particles. Particles are waves. Crisis in the atom -- 12. Why things have shapes. Lewis's magic cubes. Stealing, sharing, double counting. The power of repulsion -- 13. Why grass is green or why our blood is red. An old question answered. From sunlight to sugar. A brief history of colour vision. Blood and iron -- 14. Why water is weird. Fragile bonds. Floating ice and foreign policy. Molecular recognition and the molecules of life -- 15. The Sun, the Earth, the greenhouse. Yellow-hot sun, infrared-warm Earth. When it comes to carbon dioxide, more is more. Disinformation and denialism -- 16. In the beginning. From Big Bang to small planet. The birth and death of stars. Size matters. The making of the elements. Vital dust