While astronomers charted the heavens, geographers and cartographers mapped the earth's exotic land and seas. Commerce and navigation exploded as mapmakers and bold explorers built on each other's achievements; in the process, our very concept of the earth changed from a flat surface to a sphere.

The Science and Discovery series recreates one of history's most successful journeys--four thousand years of scientific efforts to better understand and control the physical world. Science has often challenged and upset conventional wisdom or accepted practices; this is a story of vested interests and independent thinkers, experiments and theories, change and progress. Aristotle, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Einstein, and many others are featured.