How did the universe begin? Where do galaxies come from? How do stars and planets form? Where do the material particles we are made of come from? How did life begin? Today we have only provisional answers to such questions. But scientific progress will improve these answers dramatically over the next ten years, predicts John Gribbin in this riveting book. He focuses on what we knowor think we knowabout ten controversial, unanswered issues in the physical sciences and explains how current cutting-edge research may yield solutions in the very near future.