Elisabeth Dufourcq has a doctorate in political science, was State Secretary for Research in 1995 under President Jacques Chirac, and was subsequently Inspector General for Social Affairs until 2006. She is currently director of curriculum in the history of science at the Institut Catholique in Paris.
This book is much more than simply an introduction to science, to all of science. It doesn’t aim to show us around mathematics, astronomy, and physics the way we visit a museum. It is a living invitation to science, to a reasoned and in-depth understanding of its results and its discoveries: how does one become a scientific inventor? How do you formulate your discovery? How is it made known? How is it incorporated?

From the first, rudimentary knowledge of Homo sapiens to the recent progress in artificial intelligence, while looking at Greek medicine, the power of numbers in architecture and mathematics, but also the political implications of science, Élisabeth Dufourcq presents here the great panorama of science. In a plain-spoken style, with stupefying scholarship that is always accessible, the mysteries of scientific inventions are revealed.