Book excerpt: From a beginning in an Egyptian delta town and the port of Alexandriato the scenic vistas of sunny southern California, Ahmed Zewail takesus on a voyage through time his own life and the split-secondworld of the femtosecond. In this endearing expos(r) of his life andwork until his receipt of the Nobel Prize in 1999, he draws lessonsfrom his life story so far, and he meditates on the impact which therevolution in science has had on our modern world in bothdeveloped and developing countries.