Chain reactions : pioneers of British science and the stories that link them

Looks at the scientists and inventors to be found upon the walls of the National Portrait Gallery, and the often extraordinary connections between them.

Relationships familial, intellectual, amicable and implacable are unearthed, as are the roles played by coincidence and accident in the great scientific breakthroughs.

Packed with detail and anecdote, this guide is illustrated in colour throughout, and includes such major figures as Samuel Pepys and Christopher Wren, William Harvey and Marie Stopes, Richard Arkwright and James Bessemer.