Lawrence Krauss is sometimes called the Richard Dawkins of the exact sciences. He is a serious research physicist and one of the world's most famous popularizers of science, whose works Russian readers are just beginning to get acquainted with. The subtitle of his book already emphasizes that the picture of the world drawn by science surpassed all religious epics in majesty. This grandiose narrative unfolds in Krauss on two levels: as the evolution of the Universe, which ultimately led to our existence, and as the evolution of our understanding of the structure of this Universe. The metaphor of Plato's cave runs throughout the book: step by step, science reveals illusions and moves towards the true reality that underlies our world. Krauss' guiding thread is light - not only the light of the mind, but also radiation itself, the properties of which are surprisingly rethought at all stages of the development of science - from mechanics through the theory of electromagnetic waves to the theory of relativity, quantum electrodynamics, particle physics and modern cosmology.