This book attempts to explain why 'string theory' may provide the comprehensive underlying theory that describes and explains our world. It is an enthusiastic view of how compactified string/M-theories (plus data that may be reachable) seem to have the possibilities of leading to a comprehensive underlying theory of particle physics and cosmology, perhaps soon. We are living in a hugely exciting era for science, one during which it may be possible to achieve a real and true understanding of our physical world.

Written in an informal and engaging style, this volume traces the discoveries that led to our understanding of the size and structure of the Milky Way, and the conclusive evidence for a massive black hole at its center. Robert H. Sanders, an astronomer who witnessed many of these developments, describes how we parted the veil of interstellar dust to probe the strange phenomena within. We now know that the most luminous objects in the Universe - quasars and radio galaxies - are powered by massive black holes at their hearts. But how did black holes emerge from being a mathematical peculiarity, a theoretical consequence of Einstein's theory of gravity, to become part of the modern paradigm that explains active galactic nuclei and galaxy evolution in normal galaxies such as the Milky Way? This story, aimed at non-specialist readers and students and historians of astronomy, will both inform and entertain.