This book deals in popular form with some of main branches of modern physics. It tells of the universe and the laws governing the four states of matter and the three basic kinds of fields which man has got to know. It also considers some of the hypotheses concerning matter and the universe which must still be verified. It tells of the inroads into the universe which scientists are contemplating today with a view on the distant future.The authors present popular expositions of the fundamentals of gas dynamics, explosion theory and the dynamics, explosion theory and the dynamics of fields. Advances in these divisions of physics have made possible the great achievements of aviation, rocketry, hydraulic power production and thermal engineering. Some of the more complex physical phenomena are explained on simple examples from everyday life.Mikhail Vasilyev is a Soviet journalist and science popularizer whose books are known both in the Soviet Union and many other countries. His Reportage from the 21st Century has seen 25 printings in foreign countries. Other books of his include Travels into Outer Space, Metals and Man, Energy and Man and Nonmetals and Man, the last three being parts of a big series under the general heading The Universe an Man, on which he has been working for the last few years.Professor Kirill Stanyukovich is an eminent Soviet theoretical physicist. He is the author of numerous scientific works on gas dynamicsm cosmology and gravitational theory, many of which have been translated into foreign languages. One of his major contributions is the monograph Unsteady Gas Motion.