bill bryson a short history of nearly everything review

It is, in fact, a short history of nearly everything. After that whirlwind-like, but strangely connected tour, he dives into plate tectonics, the rise of life on Earth, the history and odd turns of life, and finally the rise and success of us as humans. From there, it is on to radioactive decay, our understanding of the atom, Einstein, relativity, quarks, and the age of the Universe. He covers the basics of astronomy, including supernovae, quasars, and the planets, and then moves on to how we figured out how big the Earth is (not as simple as it seems), and how old the Earth is (even more difficult). He recounts the story of the discovery of the cosmic background radiation, a kind of cosmic warmth left over from the Big Bang, then talks about the Big Bang itself, how the elements formed, then galaxies, stars, our Sun and the planets. He begins, as one should when recounting the history of everything, with the beginning. How do we know how big the Earth is or what is inside it? How do we know how old dinosaur bones are or where a comet comes from? Most of us have a basic idea of what the world is like, but not how we figured it out in the first place. But instead of merely regurgitating what we know about the world, as most textbooks do, Bryson illustrates how we figured all this stuff out in the first place.

With all of his characteristic good humor and wit, he sets out to remedy this, and - thank heavens - brings us along for the ride. I didn't know what a proton was, or a protein, didn't know a quark from a quasar, didn't understand how geologists could look at a layer of rock on a canyon wall and tell you how old it was, didn't know anything really.'

'And ocean salinity of course represented only the merest sliver of my ignorance. Didn't have the faintest idea,' he writes in his introduction. 'I had no idea, for example, why the oceans were salty but the Great Lakes weren't. In one of his many, interminable plane trips over the Atlantic Ocean, Bryson describes how he suddenly realized that despite his travels and his deep grasp of a number of wonderful topics like, for instance, how to run away from a bear he knew absolutely nothing about the planet on which he lives. Bill Bryson is the well-loved author of A Walk in the Woods, I'm a Stranger Here Myself, and other books about his wanderings.

Bill bryson a short history of nearly everything review