What I learned from this book (in no particular order)

1.tPhosphor was accidentally discovered when a scientist tried to turn human urine into gold. The similarity in color seemed to have been a factor in his conviction that this was possible. Like, duh. I’m no scientist, but shouldn’t it be obvious enough?

2.t“In the early 1800s there arose in England a fashion for inhaling nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, after it was discovered that its use ‘ was attended by a highly pleasurable thrilling’. For the next half- century it would be the drug of choice for young people.” How groovy is that?

3.tIf you are an average-sized adult, you contain within you enough potential energy to explode with the force of THIRTY very large hydrogen bombs. Assuming, that is, that you KNOW how to actually do this and REALLY want to make a point. Talk about a monstrous temper tantrum.

4.tWe are each so atomically numerous and so vigorously recycled at death that some of our atoms probably belonged to Shakespeare, Genghis Khan or any other historical figure. But no, you are NOT Elvis or Marilyn Monroe; it takes quite a while for their atoms to get recycled.

5.tWhen you sit in a chair, you are not actually sitting there, but levitating above it at the height of a hundredth millions of a centimeter. Throw away those yoga mats, your ARE already levitating without knowing it.

6.tThe atomic particles that we now know as Quarks were almost named Partons, after you know who. The image of Ms. Parton with her, uh, cosmic mammaries bouncing around the atomic nuclei is VERY unsettling.Thankfully, that scientist guy changed his mind.

7.tThe indigestible parts of a giant squid, in particular their beaks, accumulate in sperm whales’ stomachs into ambergris, which is used as a fixative in perfumes. The next time you spray on Chanel No. 5, you’re dowsing yourself in the distillate of unseen sea monsters. * Note to self: must throw away sea monster perfume collection*

8.tThe ‘maidenhair’ in maidenhair moss does NOT refer to the hair on the maiden’s head.

BUT SERIOUSLY,

this is a fascinating, accessible book on the history of the natural sciences, covering topics as diverse as cosmology, quantum physics, paleontology, chemistry and other subjects that have bedeviled a science dolt like me through high school and beyond. Yes, it’s true, I failed BOTH chemistry and physics in high school. I can't judge how accurate Mr. Bryson represents the sciences in this book, but it surely beats being bogged down in A Brief History of Time and their ilk.

I know virtually nothing about science, so it was with some trepidation that I began reading this introduction to life, the universe and everything, which deals with questions such as "How did the universe originate?" and "How much does planet Earth weigh?". I ended up enjoying the hell out of it, as Bryson's writing style is so witty and accessible that it frequently made me laugh out loud. He has a knack of telling you not just about major developments in the history of the universe, but also about the scientists who made the discoveries he describes, who were frequently larger-than-life characters leading very tragic lives. To be honest, I enjoyed the asides on the scientists more than the science itself, but that didn't stop me enjoying reading all the bits about the Big Bang, early life forms and quarks. It also gave me an understanding of how random and unpredictable life really is, and how little mutations can lead to massive changes. Impressive stuff.

Stunning in scope and execution. Loved every page of it, even geology was made exciting. That really is some feat.

This is a wonderful overview of, well, exactly what the title depicts!

There is a degree of story-telling that Bryson utilises that makes the narrative smooth and easy to follow. In fact, the novel reminds me of those great teachers you may of had at school where they would be explaining the material they were supposed to be teaching you but would go off on a tangent about something else before looping back to the aforementioned topic. Bryson does this throughout the novel and combined with his narration and satire, it's all so entertaining!

I love the primary conception of the novel:

'...I was on a long flight across the Pacific, staring idly out the window at moonlit ocean, when it occurred to me with a certain uncomfortable forcefulness that I didn't know the first thing about the only planet I was ever going to live on.'

If that statement hit you as hard as it hit me, I would strongly suggest reading this book. His own objective to write this book was to understand himself so do not fret if you are put off simply because you are not acquainted with scientific texts. At the end of the day, the prose considered in this book pretty much affects everyone. Just a basic understanding of atoms, weather, water dipolarity and glacier ice layers I think is a very minimal basis of scientific knowledge to be understood - and really, it's fascinating! I would definitely recommend this to someone who is studying or planning to study science at A Level/Level 3 to get a good basis for their further studies.

I learnt while studying classics that authors (like Bronte and Austen) would utilise the tool of letters so that the reader could be exposed to another set of narrative for better plot development. Bryson is on the same journey as the reader - just a normal guy of next to no predisposition of scientific background simply enquiring about the basics. He uses small intervals where he repeats his inquisitive conversations with scientists and specialists in certain fields to explain certain matters that he would find too difficult. This just makes it feel you're on this big, long journey with Bryson and his guests as tour guides.

I have a couple of criticisms though. At the beginning of the novel, there some beautiful drawings depicting a timeline of the Earth's history and even a little drawing of the Earth's layers in the introduction. However, there are plenty more verbal descriptions of pretty sublime and profound matters but no diagrams to aid them. Of course, you could just Google it and find something like what you're reading but a wider use of diagrams, pictures or drawings would supplement this novel perfectly and increase the understanding even further. Also, I found Bryson to be quite repetitive when there was no need which made it a little tiresome.

However, this book is the best introduction to our planet that ever graced the modern book world (in my opinion and all those who recommended it to me). It's humorous, factually apt and fluent in its composure.

Well done, Bryson, you have accomplished something just as great as those you wrote about.

That was an Encyclopedia not a book!

Bryson has taken us in a journey from "Cosmos" till we reached our Planet "Earth", then went into micro-details of almost all beings ..till he ended with us: Humans!!

I'm thrilled by his knowledge & all the scientific facts & theories in this book. The only weak point would be the prolonged, unnecessary details sometimes ..

Good grief if I had even one textbook half this enthralling in high school, who knows what kind of impassioned -ologist I would have grown up to be. I hereby petition Bryson to re-write all curriculum on behalf of the history of the world.

I would run across things half-remembered from midterms and study guides and think, "You mean this is what they were talking about? You have got to be kidding me." It's never condescending, always a joy.

In fact, what I loved most is the acute, childlike sense of wonder seeping through the pages. How fantastic little we know about the world in which we live. All the great scientific leaps fallen through the cracks, all the billions of leaps that will never be made, every scientist who with an amiable grin shrugs to say, "I don't know. We don't know. Who has any idea?" The world is a magically baffling, enchanting place, and after nearly everything there is infinitesimally more.

Desde el momento que empecé este libro supe que iba a ser un 5 estrellas.

Tenía muchas ganas de escuchar algo de no ficción mientras hacía sudokus y esto fue perfecto. A mí este tipo de libros a veces se me hacen pesados a pesar de que me resulta interesantes, pero este nunca me aburrió. Tiene la una mezcla perfecta de historia, hechos interesantes e importantes, anécdotas interesantes e irrelevantes pero super entretenidas y un tono súper casual y fácil que te ayuda a entender conceptos que en realidad son súper complejos.
De todas maneras, recomiendo escuchar esto en audiolibro porque se lee más rápido y no necesitas darle tu atención 100%, lo que hace mucho más fácil que el libro no se vuelva pesado.
100% recomiendo, especialmente a las personas que les interesa leer este tipo de libros pero tienen miedo de no entender o que sea muy como un libro de colegio.

This is a jocular and interesting history of science, from the beginnings of the universe to our impending extinction. It was my first Bill Bryson and I found his lively style engaging as he explores, not just the answers to the questions themselves, but the personalities involved and how they arrived at our current understanding.

I would suggest this as an excellent place to begin if you have an interest in the bigger questions.

I found it dizzying and challenging too. The limits of the known universe, the spacetime continuum, the sheer luck involved in us even being here to ask the questions... When I was younger, I actively sought out discussion of these philosophical mysteries... now it brings on the existential dread!

A book whose mere existence attests to the massive amount of research Bill Bryson did. Even harder, I'd imagine, was whittling all that research into digestible chapters and writing in a clear language for all us laypeople.

I've always been terrible at science and math, and must make peace with the fact that I can grasp onto very little in these fields. Most of the information in this book was processed by my brain, understood briefly, and then punted directly out of my left ear drum, never to be seen again. So it goes.

I did enjoy, however, the profiles of the mad scientists and peculiar inventors that uncovered important aspects of how our world works. There appears to be a direct correlation between scientific genius and being petty, cantankerous, or downright devious. Half of the greatest discoveries of humankind were done on accident, and the other half were stolen from some poor fool now forgotten by history. There is more drama in each chapter than an entire season of The Bachelor.

Something is very wrong with the world when this book is not required reading for high schoolers!

If we'd had this back when I was in high school, who knows what I would've done with my life! It certainly would have made things a lot less dreary.

It's just one of those books where you know, upon reading the very first page, that you're getting into something incredible !

I'm only 28 pages in and I'm already squirming in my seat with nerdy excitement.

This won't be the last of Bryson's books that I pick up, either.

This is one of the most enjoyable books I have ever read. There, I said it

Bryson's book combines the best qualities of science writers like Attenborough, Diamond, Durrell, and Wilson; presenting the information with the wit he is most known for. It is an amazing achievement to condense the entire base of human scientific knowledge into 478 pages, but Bryson has done it. I completely agree with Tim Flannery, who writes on the jacket that "all schools would be better places if it were the core science reader on the curriculum." I certainly would have gained much if I had read it when I was 15.

This is one of the few books that has truly challenged what I had previously held to be conventional wisdom (at least in my own mind). Two main changes have come about:

1. I had always been jealous of the "true" zoologists, such as Audubon and Darwin, who were around when the world was as yet unexplored, and discovering a species was as simple as being the first to walk into a patch of forest. I left science because the idea of being tied to a sterile lab held no interest for me. However, after reading Bryson's vignettes of early scientific/zoological exploration (much of which was both comic and tragic), I realize that those days weren't quite as idyllic as I had imagined.
2. Bryson does a "good" job of scaring the hell out of you by showing just how precarious our daily existence really is. I probably shouldn't say this, but it puts such problems as global climate change into context when you read how an eruption of the supervolcano beneath Yellowstone National Park would wipe out most of the life on earth in a painfully slow manner; especially when Bryson describes how this eruption is overdue by 30, 000 years by historical average.

Combined with those two new impressions, I am left with the following conclusions, and a slightly rearranged outlook on life.

First off, it is clear that science benefits from a large degree of serendipity. We as a species/civilization have been lucky to have some truly great minds working on deciphering the way our world works. Some of these are household names [Newton, Halley, Einstein], some are not [Henry Cavendish, Rosalind Franklin]. However, as with everything that us humans put our hands on, this endeavor wasn't perfect. Egregious mistakes, pathological lying, childlike rivalries and tantrums - they all occurred. On balance, whether they helped or hurt the effort isn't clear. But what is clear is that our present level of understanding was by no means assured.

Secondly, the fact that life is so tenuous makes one a little more philosophical. Since I've finished the chapter about Yellowstone and similar catastrophic threats, I find myself asking "what if today is the day?" It can be rough when you get on the bus at the end of a particularly annoying workday, when the disagreements were petty and you didn't get much done, and think "is that what I did on the last day of my life?"

Thankfully, that attitude only lasted for a short while, until I was able to reframe it in a more productive way. Now I tell myself not to worry about big problems that might happen in the future, because I know that we will be hit by a meteor, we will experience a supervolcano eruption. It's best to just enjoy every day, doing what you really know to be what it is that you want to do. Does that mean that I won't recycle anymore, that I will leave the tap running while I brush my teeth? No! Because doing things to reduce my impact makes me feel good, that I'm thinking about society's needs - not just my own. It's what I want to do.

So, in an incredible way (that even Bill Bryson probably didn't predict) this book can really change your life.

يحكى أن يهوديا قرر الذهاب إلى دمياط للتجارة و حينما وصل إليها أراد اختبار أهلها قبل أن يبدأ مشروعه فأشار للصبى الذى أستأجره ليكون دليلا له
خذ هذا القرش فاشتر لنا غداء و شراب و حلوى و لا تنسى طعام للحمار و شيئا أتسلى به فى طريقى
كان القرش لا يشترى بالكاد وجبة طعام لشخص واحد الا ان الشاب الدمياطى - و الدمياطى لمن لا يعرف كالخليلى فى الأدبيات الفلسطينية – ذهب إلى السوق و اشترى بطيخة بنصف قرش و أعاد لليهودى النصف الأخر قائلا له
هى غداء لنا و فى نفس الوقت تحلية و شراب و نعطى للحمار قشرها و نتسلى بلبها طوال الطريق
أدار اليهودى حماره عائدا و قال قوم مثل هذا لا يرجى من ورائهم مكسب.
فلنترك هذه الحكاية و سأقص عليكم حكاية أخرى تخص بطيخة أخرى
ندخل فى الموضوع
- طلبك عندى يا سيدنا الأفندى
قالها أمين المكتبة الكهل و هو يعدل وضع نظارته ذات الغطاء السميك و ينظر بدهشة إلى هذا الفتى المتأنق الذى كان طلبه غريبا و مربكا بعض الشىء
- أريد شيئا عن الكون و بدايته .. الإنفجار الكبير و المنظومة الشمسية ... النجوم و المستعرات الضوئية و النيازك .. المذنبات و تاريخها و كيف يمكن أن تهدد الأرض .. أريد أيضا أن أعرف كيف يقيسون هذه المسافات الشاسعة المقدرة بعشرات السنوات الضوئية.
- عندى كتاب هيعجبك قوى بتاع هاوكينج. حاجه كده من الأخر
- ألديك أيضا شيئا عن الأحافير و المسحاثات يكون سهل و شامل و فى نفس الوقت يشرح كيف انقرضت الديناصورات و كيف نقدر أعمار المستحاثات و فترات معيشتها و عصورها و التاريخ الجيولوجى للأرض
- عندى كتاب هيعجبك و كمان مجموعة مقدمة قصيرة جدا فيها شوية كتب معقولين و خد كمان التحفة العلمية السمكة داخلك
- طيب بالنسبة للكيمياء و الجدول الدورى للعناصر و اكتشاف اسرار المادة
- لا دى بقى تاخد لها فيلم فيديو من ثلاث أجزاء
https://youtu.be/jQmyR0hnd9c?list=PLg...
- آينشتين و نيوتن و أساطين الفيزياء أسمع عنهم كثيرا فهل أجد لديك شيئا من أعمالهم و تأثيرهم فى العلم
- عندى طبعا مجموعة كتب كويسة بس للأمانه بعضها لسه هقرأه بس بيشكروا فيها جامد
- حسنا ماذا عن الذرة و تاريخها و الكواركس و ميكانيكا الكم و نظرية الأوتار الفائقة
- عندى كتاب الثورة العلمية و كتاب الفيزياء المسلية هاجيبهم لك
- أريد كتاب أيضا عن التلوث و حماية البيئة و كيف ساهم الإنسان فى ذلك
و أيضا البراكين و الزلازل و الألواح التكتونية و تكون الجبال و الجزر أيضا أنا مهتم بها و بطريقة معرفتنا لها و توقعها
و لو توفر لديك شىء فى طبقات الجو و علوم الأرصاد الجوية و تأثيرات البحار و المحيطات على المناخ العالمى
- لا دى صعب تلاقيها هنا
- ماذا عن الخلية و الكائنات الدقيقة من ميكروبات و فيروسات و متعضيات و تكوينها و طريقة عملها و تصنيفها و تطورها
- عندى كتب كتير هتعجبك من لويس باستير لتشارلز دارون للجينوم هتحتاج حوالى خمس كتب علشان تغطى الموضوع ده.

كنت بالمصادفة جالسا فى نفس المكتبة بانتظار تغليف مجلد ميكى و منشغلا بقراءة عدد خاص من سلسلة رجل المستحيل و رغم ذلك تابعت الحوار الذى انتهى بأمين المكتبة الذى جهز حوالى خمسة عشر كتابا لهذا الشاب
اعتدلت قليلا و حييت الشاب و خاطبته قائلا
- بقولك ايه يا معلم .. الكتب دى كتير جدا و شكلك لسه جديد فى السكة دى
ما تاخد موجز تاريخ كل شيء تقريبًا

كتاب رائع و ممتع و مكتوب بإسلوب أدبى بليغ و هو ساخر أحيانا لدرجة الكوميديا. تجنب فيه المؤلف أى تعقيد علمى أو معادلات أو رسومات توضيحية و به كل ما تسأل عنه و زيادة فى حوالى خمسمائة صفحة من القطع المتوسط
باختصار هتقرأه و تدعيلى
هززت رأسى بثقة و نظرت إلى الشاب لأرى رد فعله على نصيحتى و لشدة دهشتى لم أجد لا شاب و لا مكتبة و وجدتنى ما زلت أسطر هذه المراجعة لهذا الكتاب الرائع
لمدمنى البطيخ من أمثالى أهدى هذه البطيخة الحلوة المتنكرة فى صورة كتاب
و أخيرا بعض الإقتباسات
1-
الحياة من وجهة نظر الكيمياء

2-
ماذا لو لم نكن وحدنا فى هذا الكون الشاسع

3-
العلم قد لا يكون معقدا و لكن العلماء هكذا يفعلون

4-

5-

6-

7-

8-

9-
ليس من السهل أن تكون عالما

10-
لماذا وجدت الحياة

11-
حتى كاميرون دياز ستجدها بين صفحات الكتاب