On a train ride to a metallurgical conference in Chicago, a consultant tries to avoid the debate between pure and applied sciences, but he cannot avoid it when he gets cornered in the washroom by two professors and an undecided bright new recruit.

In the future, a field ethnologist studies and gains access to a new culture by raising her two children there and learning through them. As the children mature, the culturally ascribed gender roles make life hard for the son.

When a physics professor reaches the cusp of his greatest work, he pressures his friend into sharing research information and lands himself into trouble with the U.S. military.

A collection of excerpts regarding humanity's various pursuits of science throughout time.

A young man working in an intense laboratory falls madly in love with a machine that can invent new sensations on this skin - until the experiment is destroyed.

A scientist notes the discovery of a new chemical compound with physics-defying capabilities.

A professor of neurobiology describes to horrified police officers how he snapped under his famous physicist wife's controlling tendencies and murdered her.

A young alien scientist joins forces with other archaeologists to uncover the secrets of a race that died out many years ago.

In a futuristic world, an agent for a corrupt company disguises himself as a scientific reporter to infiltrate a research facility and kill the head of its program. When the agent discovers that the research facility is conducting revolutionary work, he must decide whether to destroy work that could help the human race or to obey orders.

In seventeenth-century Delft, a fanatically curious fabric merchant invents the microscope. Even as he neglects and abuses his family, he discovers a new world of life.