That was epic! Probably not something one would say about nonfiction, but for me it was one of the best books read this year.
Although the book is 20 years old and contains some outdated info (like Pluto being a planet) it still fascinating to read. Bryson not only manages to present various scientific describes and theories interestingly, but he also links everything together showing us a bigger picture. We can see how humanity's understanding of the universe was changing gradually and how the world we're living in was getting bigger with every generation.
In addition to interesting content, Bryson has great writing style. His ironic comments are really funny. And the way he talks about pity little dramas surrounding science! I couldn't imagine how many of great scientific minds were involved in stupid rivalries, plagiarism or simply were colossal assholes.
The other great thing about this book that it destroys prevailing myth of almighty science - there're actually so many things science is still uncapable to explain, and we haven't even studied our own planet properly.
And last but not least powerful environmental message: how much humans have destroyed during our short existence as a species.

A Short History of Goodreads

Surveys show that nearly 40% of all Americans believe the history of literature started in 2007, when Amazon sold the first Kindle; indeed, Amazon Fundamentalists hold it as an article of faith that Jeff Bezos actually wrote all the world's e-books over a period of six days. This is, of course, nonsense. It has been conclusively demonstrated that literature is far older than the Kindle; books already existed thousands of years ago, which were the direct ancestors of today's e-publications. For example, careful examination reveals that The Odyssey and The Gospel according to Saint Mark are primitive versions of Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters and Bared to You. Similar relationships have been shown to obtain for all modern books.

Problems arise, however, from the fact that these archaic protobooks still exist today; indeed, some have adapted to the e-reader environment and begun to thrive there. It is entirely too easy for an unsuspecting internet shopper to purchase a copy of Pride and Prejudice, incorrectly believing that it is part of the Twilight series. From the standpoint of formal literary theory, it is admittedly incorrect to say that Pride and Prejudice is "worse" than Twilight. They are simply different; neither one is "worse" than the other, since they have developed in different environments.

From a practical point of view, however, a person who buys a Jane Austen novel is almost certain to be disappointed. There are no vampires or werewolves; sex is barely even hinted at; most upsettingly of all, the book will be full of long sentences and difficult words. The combination of these factors can only lead to an intensely unpleasant reading experience, which may discourage the reader from making new Amazon purchases for days or even weeks afterwards. Particularly given the fragile state of the US economy, this is evidently not an acceptable state of affairs.

People have always exchanged recommendations and warnings with their friends, but it became clear that a more systematic approach was needed. There had to be a place where book-consumers could post advice and help each other avoid these infuriating mistakes, so that everyone could be sure of reading nothing but up-to-the-minute YA erotic paranormal romances.

Thus was born Goodreads.


This work by Manny is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

A Short History of Nearly Everything is Bill Bryson's summation of life, the universe, and everything, a nice little easy-reading science book containing an overview of things every earthling should be aware of.

As I've repeatedly mentioned over the years, every time one of the casual-readers tells me I have to read something, like Harry Potter or the DaVinci Code, I dig my feet in deeper and resolve to never read it. This is one of the occasions I should have shaved a decade off of my stubbornness and caved in right away.

Bryson covers a wide range of topics, from the formation of the universe to the evolution of man for our apelike forebears, and all points in between. Atoms? Cells? These are just stops along the enlightenment highway that Bill Bryson has paved! He touches upon quantum physics, geology, the size of our solar system, the year without a summer, and other topics innumerable.

The writing style is so accessible that I have to think I'd be some kind of scientists if my high school and college text books were written by Bill Bryson. His easy, breezy style makes even the most complicated topics easier to digest.

It's not often that I come away from a book having felt like I learned something new, criminal techniques from my usual reads excepted. Bryson has succeeded where many have failed before him. He has used chicanery to get me to read nonfiction and enjoy myself while doing it. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

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.

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.

Oh my gods, what a waste of perfectly good paper! I am flabbergasted that this has such consistently high reviews...

Three problems with this tripe:
1. falsity of the science (most blatantly around cosmology, but not limited to any one field) and misunderstanding of scientific principles;
2. a focus more on "biography" rather than on real "history";
3. trivial worthlessness of the information.

Number 1 is briefly chronicled below. Within just the first 20 pages or so, there are ridiculous factual errors and misrepresentations of scientific knowledge. Even in 2003 when the book was published, these errors would have been unforgivable. Where the bloody hell were the editors?! Apparently the author came out later to mention his "lack of scientific chops," or the like. How can a book about the history of science fuck up the science?!

Number 2 is just downright sad. Apparently the author felt that if he could spend about a page per scientist, he would make the material more interesting. No, man, I want science and history, not abbreviated and hackneyed biography. He doesn't even move smoothly between people... it's just a meandering of random scientific endeavors, somewhat brought into chronology.

Number 3 is a difficult criticism, because with this kind of book, it is hard to get away from misc. trivia. And I'll even acknowledge that I learned a lot of trivia... and that the book does a great job of showing us just how much we don't know. But as I reached page 360 and realized (for the fifth or so time) that this was info that I could get in a quick google search, I just couldn't do it anymore.

What a gods awful waste. What's more disappointing than the book though, is the overwhelming praise the book has gotten. I don't even want to sell this book back, but throw it away (and I thought I would never say something like that)! I'd rather have someone go slightly ignorant than have them be fed this mess of misinformation and dredge.


Below were reactions I had when reading was "in progress."

Start (05/08/11):
Okay, so the "approachable textbook"... does it live up to the hype? Every review I have seen is about how great this book is. Let's see.

So far, this book shows its 2003 date by providing currently inaccurate data; I also did not realize the author would assume zero scientific knowledge on the part of the reader... this could be interesting.

Finally, the Introduction is full of annoying straw men and non-sequitors that really make me wonder if the author has learned much about scientific inquiry at all. He really doesn't understand probability. Eh, I'm only on page 16. Let's see if this improves.

(05/09/11)
Oh, bloody frak. "In the long term, *gravity* may turn out to be a little too strong, and one day it may halt the expansion of the universe and bring it collapsing in upon itself, till it crushes itself down into another singularity... On the other hand it may be too weak and the universe will keeping racing away..." (emphasis mine) NOTHING about those statements is correct. Gravity has nothing to do with the expansion of spacetime. Ugh, I thought this book had fantastic reviews! The term he is talking about here is "dark energy," NOT gravity.

"Astronomers these days can do the most amazing things. If someone struck a match on the Moon, they could spot the flare."
... You have got to be fucking kidding me. A redox oxidation in a vacuum. Dude...

Oh my frak. He just lost all respect from me. "...even with the most conservative inputs [in the Drake equation] the number of advanced civilzations... always works out to be somewhere in the millions." Fucking no. Dude, how the hell did this even get published?!

Big bois. Long bois. Extra extra page bois.

Everyone's heard of them. The Libraries are full of them. But are they worth it?

Click the link for my video review of the big bois in my life.

The Written Review:Want a whirlwind worldwide romance adventure minus the romance? This is the book for you.

This book really does cover nearly everything. From the Big Bang to current life on earth, Bill Bryson does wonderful job of breaking down complex theories and concepts to their essential message:

n  Protons give an atom its identity, electrons its personality.n

Though, sometimes he gets a bit wordy.

n  Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result -- eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly -- in you.n

This was such an interesting book to read and I walked away learning so much. This is the sort of book that requires two or three times reading through it to fully understand and digest everything. I can barely comprehend how much time and effort went into research. Truly a masterpiece.

Audiobook Comments:
While he did not narrate his own book, the Richard Matthews does a great job of reading it. Though, this is one of those books that you cannot tune out on without missing something crucial.

This is a great big-picture book. For a fun microhistory, I'd recommend  At Home: A Short History of Private Life also by Bill Bryson.


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A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson

A Short History of Nearly Everything by American author Bill Bryson is a popular science book that explains some areas of science, using easily accessible language that appeals more so to the general public than many other books dedicated to the subject.

Bryson describes graphically and in layperson's terms the size of the universe and that of atoms and subatomic particles.

He then explores the history of geology and biology and traces life from its first appearance to today's modern humans, placing emphasis on the development of the modern Homo sapiens.

Furthermore, he discusses the possibility of the Earth being struck by a meteorite and reflects on human capabilities of spotting a meteor before it impacts the Earth, and the extensive damage that such an event would cause. ...

عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «تاریخچه تقریبا همه چیز»؛ «شرح مختصری از همه چیز»؛ «علم و سرگذشت آن»؛ نویسنده: بیل برایسون؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز ششم ماه جولای سال 2005میلادی

عنوان: تاریخچه تقریبا همه چیز؛ نویسنده: بیل برایسون؛ مترجم: محمدتقی فرامرزی؛ تهران، مازیار، 1384، در 615ص، شابک 9645676487؛ موضوع: علوم به زبان ساده از نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 21م

عنوان: شرح مختصری از همه چیز؛ نویسنده: بیل برایسون؛ مترجم: محمود زنجانی؛ تهران، دایره المعارف ایرانشناسی، 1388، در 512ص، شابک9786005204155؛

عنوان: علم و سرگذشت آن؛ نویسنده: بیل برایسون؛ مترجم: مجید عمیق؛ تهران، مهراب قلم کتابهای مهتاب، 1390، در 171ص، شابک9786001033636؛

نویسنده درباره ی موضوعاتی گوناگون، از «مهبانگ» گرفته، تا «مکانیک کوانتوم»، و از «تکامل»، تا «زمین شناسی»، به بحث میپردازند؛ ایشان در کتابشان از راه ماجراهای «کاشفان» و «دانشمندان» موضوعات علمی را، به بحث میگذارد؛ ایشان در این کتاب کوشش میکنند برخلاف درسنامه های علمی، که به نظر ایشان، شوقی برای دانستن، در خوانشگران برنمیانگیزند، چرا که هیچگاه به چراها، چگونه ها و چه هنگام ها، در مورد اکتشافات علمی نمیپردازند، ایشان توانسه اند موضوعات علمی را به شکلی جذاب ارائه دهند

نقل از متن: (نمیدانستم «پروتون» یا «پروتئین» چیست، «کوارک» را از «کواسار» تشخیص نمیدادم، نمیدانستم زمینشناسها چگونه میتوانند نگاهی به یک لایه از توده سنگ دیواره ی یک دره بیندازند، و عمر آن را تشخیص دهند، حقیقتاً هیچ چیز نمیدانستم؛ یک اشتیاق آرام و خارق العاده، برای یاد گرفتن، و دانستن برخی نکات، درباره ی این موضوعات، و دریافتن اینکه تا کنون چند نفر توانسته اند از آنها سر درآورند، آرام آرام بر وجودم چیره شد؛ این همواره بزرگترین شگفتی زندگی ام بوده است ـ دانشمندان چگونه از مسائل سر درمیآورند...)؛ پایان نقل؛

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 11/08/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 29/06/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

ভালো। প্রথম একশ পেজে আমারে যেভাবে ধরে রাখছিলো, সেভাবে অবশ্য তার পরের দুইশ পেজ ধরে রাখে নাই। তার পরের দুইশ পেজ, জানি না আসলে।
সেভাবে ধরে রাখে নাই - মানে এই না যে একেবারেই ধরে নাই। ব্রাইসন অন্য কাউরে কোট করার চেয়ে ব্রাইসন কথা বলতেছে পড়তে বেশি ভালো লাগে, এই যা।
এইটা ভালো লাগছে যে বইটা কাউরে সাইন্স শেখায় না, শেখাইতে গিয়ে তরল করে ফেলে না, আক্ষরিক অর্থে পপুলারাইজ করে বইটা।
কীসব অদ্ভূত ইনফর্মেশন যোগাঢ় করছে, পুরা দুনিয়া ঘেটে। সেই লাগছে।
অনেকদিন পর আইকার মত একটা বিজ্ঞান ঘেষা বই হাতে লইলাম।

I didn't realize this book was about nearly everything in the history of science rather than everything in the history of society, but that's okay. Bryson explains all with a flourish of wit, and with an eye for the personal oddities or ridiculous perversities of humanity's greatest scientists. For example, '"of all the disciplines in science, paleoanthropology boasts perhaps the largest share of egos', say the authors of Java Man--a book, it may be noted, that itself devotes long wonderfully unselfconscious passages to attacks on the inadequacies of others, in particular the authors' former close colleague Donald Johnson" (p. 551).

In six units, the author gives us a wonderful survey of what we know or think we know about the universe and life on Earth. If you loved science as a subject in school but were daunted by the formulas or maths or taxonomies, this is the book you wish you’d had to get an idea about what the scientists and experts think about the natural world we live in and on, who we are and where we come from. An absolute joy to read from an author with huge capacities to make anything interesting and keep you fully engaged with little dashes of humor and fun.

(Unit names are my own)
1.tIt’s a Big Place
Down the road from me a little ways near the Jersey shore is where the echo of the Big Bang was first heard, winning the Nobel Prize for the young astronomers annoyed by the hiss interfering with their intended experiment on communications antennae. The single blinding pulse “from nothing, our universe begins” postulated as the singularity, is where we (and the book) begins, expanding out into the galaxies then coming back into the solar system and Earth.

2.tMen Like Measuring Things
How old the universe and the earth are, how big the earth is, how much it weighs, the temperatures of things, what shapes orbits are, what are elements or fossils, what tools or processes to use to measure whatever, how to beat (or beat down) the guys you don’t agree with (or stole from)…. We get the human (all too human) and the science side of things in this great section.

3.tDon’t Believe Your Eyes
“Disruption” is a thing that didn’t start with the Internet and tech companies. Bryson gives us a great example from physics when Michelson and Morley proved that luminiferous ether, “stable, invisible, weightless, frictionless”… “conceived by Descartes, embraced by Newton, and venerated by nearly everyone ever since…” was an “unfortunately wholly imaginary medium.” Then real disruption comes along with Einstein, Planck, relativity, quantum theory and how the atom and sub-atomic particles interact, to where Bohr remarked at a conference about a new theory “that the question was not whether it was crazy, but whether it was crazy enough.”

4.tBack on Planet Earth
Asteroids, volcanoes, geology, archeology, tectonics, and how they all relate (at least in how theories get developed and proved). Also plenty of reasons to fear Yellowstone Park.

5.tThat’s Life
The longest unit, “Life Itself” covers what we know about life on earth in its many variations, from single cell to complex lifeforms, how it rose, what it’s made of, what its purpose is, from the beginnings of Earth through many extinctions and ages, how Earth supports it and how hard it is to be sure of what we (think we) know.

6.tWe Haven’t Been Here That Long
Our second and a half of evolutionary time and place on the planet has given us an outsize chance of changing things. Talking about extinctions, Bryson writes, “We have been chosen, by fate or providence or whatever you wish to call it. As far as we can tell, we are the best there is. We may be all there is. It’s an unnerving thought that we may be the living universe’s supreme achievement and its worst nightmare simultaneously.” “…because we have been so careless about looking after things.” We got a lot of lucky breaks over zillions of years to make it here. We need to be better than just relying on lucky breaks to continue our survival. (My preachiness, not his.)

574 pages, 112 (additional) pages of Notes and Index, all very enjoyable.

*3.5 stars *