Inventing Reality

In the beginning was the word; the invaluable concept of force; the indispensible idea of fields; the ingenious notion of atoms; the unimaginable unity of spacetime; the imponderance nature of matter; the inexhaustible fecundity of space; the improbable prevalence of symmetry; W and Z fields; the ineffable colour of quarks; the unlimited imagination of physicists; the inscrutable essence of mathematics; the unspeakable power of language; the last word. Appendices: is there a fact in the matter?; Schroedinger's cat; the problem of measurement; language domains.