A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson
Summary
- I have read this book several times. It is a beautiful overview of the basis for a lot of modern scientific thought, along with a dose of humor and wonder that Bryson does so well.
- The main thing I dislike about this book is that after citing facts that point towards creation, he ends it by saying it is evolution.
How I discovered it
- I have always loved Bill Bryson's travel books and so I pretty much read everything he writes
How the book changed me
- It has made me really appreciate the world around me: the earth and all its wonder and delight, animals, insects, the cell. Pretty much everything is more wonderful than we can even imagine.
Details
- The curious story of James Croll shows that you can learn anything if you show an interest.
- The Solar system is huge: Distances in the Solar system are unfathomably vast
- The laws of thermodynamics
- The Universe was created perfectly for existence
- Earth is the exact right kind of planet for life
- Earth is the precise correct distance from the sun
- The chances of life starting spontanously are infinitesimally tiny
- Bacteria are on us, in us and around us in number we cannot imagine
- Our cells are wondrous in ways we cannot even comprehend.
Quotes
- Solar system is perfect. Gorgeous. Its almost uncanny - Geoffrey Marcy
- We live in a universe whose age we cant quite compute - Bill Bryson