All matter—everything around us and within us—has an ultimate birthday: the day the universe was born. This informative, eye-opening, and eminently enjoyable book is the story of our atoms’ long strange journey from the Big Bang to the creation of stars, through the assembly of Planet Earth, and the formation of life as we know it. It’s also the story of the scientists who made groundbreaking discoveries and unearthed extraordinary insights into the composition of life. Behind their unexpected findings were investigations marked by fierce rivalries, obsession, heartbreak, flashes of insight, and flukes of blind luck. Join us when Dan Levitt helps us understand the mystery of our existence: how a quadrillion atoms made of particles from the Big Bang now animate each of our cells.