A Short History of Nearly Everything
Nov 29, 2009 Learning and Knowledge, Science and Technology
Anyone who needs to improve their overall understanding of the history of science, or just wants to read an incredibly witty, human account of the trials and tribulations of usually dry-sounding scientists in ages past, needs this book. It literally is a short history of nearly everything, from explanations of how we’ve learned about the echoes of the Big Bang to feuds over dinosaurs to where we are today, told with Bill Bryson’s dry humour.
Synopsis: From primordial nothingness to this very moment, A Short History of Nearly Everything reports what happened and how humans figured it out. To accomplish this daunting literary task, Bill Bryson uses hundreds of sources, from popular science books to interviews with luminaries in various fields. His aim is to help people like him, who rejected stale school textbooks and dry explanations, to appreciate how we have used science to understand the smallest particles and the unimaginably vast expanses of space.
November 30th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Overall, an excellent popular science book. Beware that it is already a little dated in places. For example as from 2006, Pluto is no longer considered a planet. However the last chapter about the extinction of the Dodo and the Carolina Parakeet, etc, is stunning.
December 1st, 2009 at 10:19 am
I have this at home. It’s one of the first popular science books I read, and it got me hooked. I wish science was taught like this in schools – I don’t know how the educational system manages to strip all the joy out of such interesting stuff.