Timothy Ferris begins The Whole Shebang with a succinct account of how we have come to know what we know about the universe.

Then he explains the meaning behind the exciting new developments that have put cosmology in the headlines - including the discovery of planets orbiting stars other than our sun, glimpses through the Hubble Space Telescope of how the universe looked when it was only a fraction of its present age, and the detection of structure in relic radiation from the big bang that may hint at the mechanisms of genesis.

Ferris provides a lucid, nontechnical overview of current research and a forecast of where cosmological theory is likely to go in the twenty-first century. A master analogist, he presents accessible explanations of relativity and quantum physics, "inflationary" models indicating that the universe is much larger than had been thought, and "string" theories that portray all matter as made of space.

The centerpiece of The Whole Shebang is a visionary account of near-future science, in which light is shed on the possibility that our universe is one among many universes, each with different physical laws and differing prospects for the emergence of life.