Surendra Verma's remarkable little book combines hard practical worth with history and fun. Here's how it works: take 175 principles and theories from all facets of science and explain each one in a page or two, giving the relevant names and dates.

Assemble them in chronological order, beginning with Pythagoras talking about right-angled triangles and ending with Italian nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi wondering about the number of piano tuners in Chicago. Print.

Believe it or not, we've known about the greenhouse effect since 1896, when a Swedish scientist named Svante Arrhenius theorised that energy radiated from the surface of the Earth could be absorbed by carbon dioxide, which would then act as a blanket wrapped around the globe.

Want more? Okay, try this: most of the energy from stars (including our own Sun) comes from a nuclear reaction which fuses four atoms of hydrogen into one atom of helium.

The mass of a helium atom is just 99.4 per cent that of the four hydrogen atoms that made it, and the balance, 0.6 per cent, is converted to energy. It may not sound like much, but don't spend too long out in the sun, okay? It's called Bethe's theory of energy production in stars, after American physicist Hans Bethe.

There's plenty of amusement to match the hard education. It appears that the Murphy of the infamous law really does exist, and the law came into being in 1949 after a bungled experiment at an air base.

You might also like to learn why your toast lands butter-side down when dropped. It's in the book.

It's a pity such a friendly and amusing (if slightly unorthodox) introduction to 2,500 years of scientific development lacks a bibliography. The book could serve equally as introduction or refresher and suggestions for further reading would have added to its value.