The heroes of this book are like front-line intelligence officers: they enter an alien, unknown and dangerous world in order to collect information about it and bring this knowledge to people, even at the cost of their own lives. Natural scientists — it was to them that R. K. Balandin, a geologist and geographer, a popularizer of science with half a century of experience, dedicated his book — are often forced to perform a deadly experiment on themselves: after all, no one yet knows the consequences of their discoveries. And they went for it without hesitation: physicists Pierre and Marie Curie, Henri Becquerel and Igor Kurchatov, encyclopedist Mikhail Lomonosov and microbiologist Louis Pasteur. Fundamental science requires material support, which always depends on those in power, and scientists often came into conflict with their age. However, even in the conditions of the Gulag, the great designer Sergei Korolev and Pavel Florensky continued their research, not only a philosopher and theologian, but also a natural scientist with an encyclopedic outlook... There is no such scientific field that would be ignored in this comprehensive book - the world chronicle of the deeds of true Prometheans, who brought people the life-giving fire of knowledge.