In April 1991, two Alpine hikers stumbled across the well-preserved body of a Copper Age hunter half-buried in a glacier on the border between Italy and Austria. This accidental discovery, nicknamed Ötzi the Iceman, possessed a trove of invaluable information about the origins of prehistoric people. Yet while standard archaeological techniques revealed many interesting aspects of Ötzi's life—including his diet and his dress—it was only through the use of physics that more microscopic clues were uncovered; clues that, decades earlier, might have remained hidden. The strontium-to-lead ratios in Ötzi's teeth matched the ratios found in the Eisack Valley, northeast of present-day Bolzano, Italy, suggesting that was where he spent his childhood. Varying ratios of oxygen 18 to oxygen 16 in Ötzi's bones indicated that he spent much of his later life at higher altitudes. And the presence of excess copper and arsenic in Ötzi's hair suggested that he played an active role in copper smelting.

This is but one of the many examples of how the laws of physics can give us intimate details about history—details that are impossible to find through mere observation. In fact, the history of the entire universe and all it contains is written in the particular arrangements of the fundamental particles that constitute all matter. With recent developments in technology, scientists can now use everything they know about atoms—their origins, structure, and behavior—to uncover the truth about historical mysteries in archaeology, chemistry, geology, astronomy, and even art.