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.

“…Inevitably owe at least as much to supposition as to science.”

“A Short History of Nearly Everything” is in a word fascinating…mostly. I found this text the most interesting when Bill Bryson turned his attention to the personalities in the science world as opposed to lots of the science itself. He is more comfortable writing on that human angle subject and it shows.
For a book that deals with nonfiction (in as much as science is fact, this text makes clear that much science is really nothing more than conjecture) one section that will keep you on the edge of your seat is Part IV, called “Dangerous Planet”. Do not read it before bed, you will have bad dreams. It’s all about the cataclysmic ways the Earth can create (this is not induced by humans, just natural cycles) another extinction level event. At one point the text says about the planet, “For all the instability, it’s mostly remarkably and amazingly tranquil.” Understatement!
Although Mr. Bryson appropriately does not explore or accept or reject the idea of a Creator (that is not the realm of science anyway) and after reading this book the myriad of improbable, impossible and /or unexplainable intricacies of the universe, nature on earth and life itself have only deepened my belief in a Creator who put all these processes in motion. As this quote from page 172 says, “We live in a universe whose age we can’t quite compute, surrounded by stars whose distances we don’t altogether know, filled with matter we can’t identify, operating in conformance with physical laws whose properties we don’t truly understand.” There is still so much (most things actually) that science cannot even begin to understand, but too often it is presented as fact. I am irritated that when I was in school it was presented in this infallible (and intellectually dishonest) manner. Bill Bryson mostly avoids that arrogance. This quote appears in some form continuously throughout the text, “In short, we don’t quite know where we came from.” If this book makes one thing abundantly clear, it is that science knows very little, and can prove nothing about the origins of anything! That astounds me! The quote I used as the title for this review is the recurrent theme of this text. As one scientist in the text states. “You can trust the studies well enough, generally speaking. What you can’t trust are the sweeping conclusion that people often attach to them.”
Overall, I liked “A Short History of Nearly Everything”; some parts of it are immensely readable. Science and a bit of history thrown in is always interesting. However, by the last 100 pages or so I was more than ready for the book to be finished. I read it; I was intrigued, learned a lot. Moving on.
Another great line from the text-“Sometimes the world just isn’t ready for a good idea.”

The best thing about this book is that it introduces other books you would like. It showed me that I should probably read more about Newton and Einstein, and that astronomy is something that I am still interested in. I did find myself scanning through certain sections because I already understood them well (the vastness of the universe) or I don't think I will ever understand them (complicated aspects of biology). Like all science book, they get outdated fast but this one is still holding up, at least for now.

We're not really supposed to be here - the odds are so long.

But, now that we are "here" we're probably doomed, in all likelihood sooner than later. And we kind of deserve it.

Somehow Bryson manages to cheerfully cover those three depressing themes throughout making this is a very fun book! Hard to put down.

Thoroughly enjoyed this, what a gifted writer, and learned a tremendous amount along the way.

This will be a fun re-read many times over!

A sign that a book is really, really, really gripping you is when you find yourself talking to people about it. And by ‘talking to people about it’, I don’t just mean recommending that they read it, but actually spouting out things you’ve read in its pages, developing arguments from what you’ve learnt and generally just crow-barring whole tracts of knowledge into conversations which, left to their own devices, would have happily meandered elsewhere.

Such a book is Bill Bryson’s ‘A Short History of Everything’.

For the last week or so I’ve been reading it I’ve felt a little like E.L.Wisty, talking in Peter Cook’s boring, nasal voice about this marvellous book I’ve read and how it contains all these interesting facts.

This is a book which tries, and for the most part succeeds, in making very complex areas of science meaningful to a layman such as I. So we have the creation of the universe, the vastness of space, the dawn of life, the changing environments of our planet, the development of life, various extinctions and the complex evolution of man. It’s incredibly illuminating stuff, an array of complex theories broken down and put into reach of those of us who don’t have PHDs (although I’m only slightly more au fait with quantum physics than I was before I started reading that section – but then there are quantum physicists who freely admit they don’t properly understand it.) Bryson grabs the attention by turning it almost into a history lesson of discoveries , so we have thumbnail sketches of Darwin, Halley, Einstein and other great pioneers – many of whom I’d never heard of. That combined with Bryson’s eye for the outstandingly curious, then this ends up as constantly amusing and astounding read.

Now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to bother some passers-by, I’m in possession of some facts that they might find very interesting.

I am a scientist, and I found much of this book quite fascinating. The book certainly isn't comprehensive in any sense of the word--in fact it seems to roam in a semi-random sort of way; but the author's sense of humor and attention to colorful historical facts kept my interest from beginning to end.

One of the themes of this book, is that when someone comes up with with a new discovery, there are three stages before it is accepted:
1) Nobody believes it.
2) Nobody thinks it is important
3) It gets attributed to the wrong person.
These three stages come up again and again in this book. I guess it can be attributed to the fact that most scientists--and most people--are, at heart, conservative in nature.

is this informative?

I was 17.9 years old when I went on a first date with a PhD student, he proceeded to talk on "the effect of turbine blade cooling on jet engines" as we sat enjoying drinks in a lovely British pub. At the end of the evening when he asked me to go out with him again I paused, then decided to give him a second chance. We have been married for a long time now.........Anyway, my point is that Bill Bryson could talk on any subject & make it interesting. I confess I enjoy his books of a more personal nature that involve traveling or adapting to another culture than this one. Still, I was surprised to find myself enjoying learning something about geology and atoms, oh and genes also.

If you're interested in how the universe lead up to our existence, read this book. It gives wonderful & funny insight on who we are as a species & pays tribute to all many of those who gave their contributions to help us figure it out. It's a captivating read. I give it 5 stars.

”Накратко - животът просто иска да го има. Но - и тук е интересната част - в повечето случаи не иска да е кой знае какво.”

Накратко: Бил Брайсън за пореден път доказва, че знаем, че всъщност нищо не знаем. Но пък светът е пълно с чудеса място, довели - освен до развитието на различните митологии - и до изграждането на ядрото на съвременните научни дисциплини, които да отговорят на вечните въпроси кои сме ние и какво ни заобикаля.

Астрофизика, квантова механика, геология, палеонтология, биохимия и генетика шестват с неестествена лекота и достъпност из страниците. И за някой като мен, дълго смятал науки като физика и химия за пълна скука, е истинско откровение. В строен ред и с шеговитото, скептично намигване на чичо Бил, напомнящо, че науката всъщност е с отворен код и много, много далеч от крайното и окончателно обяснение на заобикалящите ни загадки вътре и извън нас.

Всичко започва, разбира се, с Големия Взрив, и се простира до появата на Homo Sapiens. Той е толкова неинтуитивен, че умът чак не го побира. Квантовият скок и котката на Шрьодингер дообъркват крехките ни представи за света. Тектоничните плочи, галактиките и Гълфстрийм, вулканичната дейност, лишеите и микробите, слънчевата активност, загадъчните “ненужни” участъци на ДНК веригата са компонентите на живота, които едва започваме да осмисляме. Въпреки тяхната древност, нашите представи и теории са млади, неуверени и далеч от изчерпателност, но пък пълни с невероятни нови открития за древни чудеса.

Науката е поле на чудесата. На грешките, предрасъдъците, чудатостите, на безсмисленото изтребление понякога, на повторенията и великите пробиви. На трагедии и триумф. И като всичко в живота - не трябва да се вземат напълно сериозно и без усмивка.

Книга, която всяко по-малко и по-голямо дете трябва да прочетат, за да повярват в чудеса. И да се научат на смирение.

“Смущаваща е мисълта, че навярно сме едновременно върховното постижение на вселената и нейният най-голям кошмар.”

«L’universo non è solo più strano di quanto immaginiamo, è più strano di quanto possiamo immaginare» J.B.S. Haldane

Bryson aveva centinaia di commenti positivi, mi son procurato sia l’e-book che il file audible, ma è solo grazie al secondo che ho portato avanti la lettura. La Breve storia di (quasi) tutto è una galleria piena di scienziati che hanno dato un contributo decisivo al progresso umano. Finché faccio i nomi di Newton, Einstein, Darwin credo che non vi siano dubbi sulla notorietà, ma se scrivo Lyell, Wistar, Cuvier, Lavoisier, Berzelius ecc.. quanti di voi hanno idea di chi fossero? Io no di certo, ho dovuto ricopiarli diligentemente. Non è solo la storia di quasi tutto, è la storia di quasi tutti. Per ogni personaggio c’è un cappello introduttivo che spesso contiene una nota di colore, eccone un esempio:

L’uomo a capotavola era l’astro più luminoso nel firmamento della paleontologia, una scienza giovane. Il suo nome era Richard Owen, e all’epoca aveva già dedicato molti anni di lavoro a fare della vita di Gideon Mantell un inferno in terra.
Owen era cresciuto a Lancaster, nel nord dell’Inghilterra, dove aveva studiato medicina. Era un anatomista nato e si era a tal punto consacrato ai suoi studi che a volte prendeva illegalmente a prestito arti, organi e altre parti di cadaveri e se li portava a casa per sezionarli con comodo

I personaggi sono paleontologi, fisici, geologi, chimici, astronomi, praticamente ognuno di essi potrebbe essere il protagonista di una biografia bizzarra o di un romanzo; presentati uno via l’altro è impossibile non confonderli. Chi, per esempio, comprese che l’atomo era composto in massima parte da uno spazio vuoto, con un nucleo molto denso al centro? Io potrei rispondere solo libro alla mano.
Per quanto si tratti di un libro di divulgazione, impossessarsi di alcuni concetti è davvero difficile.
In quanto si tratta di un libro di divulgazione storceranno il naso agli scienziati e gli specialisti delle varie branche del sapere che tocca.
Ho preferito la maggiore sistematicità di Harari (Da animali a Dèi) che ha suddiviso il libro cronologicamente anziché per argomenti come ha fatto Bryson. La suddivisione di Bryson ha comportato salti temporali e ripetizioni che in alcuni casi mi hanno fatto perdere l’orientamento. Ritaglio il capitolo 20 intitolato “Com’è piccolo il mondo” che a proposito dei batteri dice:

Ogni batterio è in grado di prelevare informazioni genetiche da qualsiasi altro batterio. Essenzialmente, come hanno detto Margulis e Sagan, tutti i batteri condividono un unico pool genico.11 Qualunque cambiamento adattativo si verifichi in un’area dell’universo batterico potrà diffondersi a qualsiasi altra area. È più o meno come se un uomo potesse andare da un insetto e prelevare da esso l’informazione genetica necessaria per farsi crescere le ali o camminare sul soffitto. Ciò significa che dal punto di vista genetico i batteri sono diventati un unico superorganismo: microscopico, disperso, ma invincibile.
Vivranno e prospereranno su tutto ciò che ci scrolleremo di dosso, verseremo o lasceremo gocciolare. Basta creare un minimo di umidità – come quando si passa un panno bagnato su un tavolo per farli proliferare come se fossero stati creati dal nulla. Mangeranno il legno, la colla della carta da parati, i metalli nella vernice rappresa. Gli scienziati australiani scoprirono un microbo chiamato Thiobacillus concretivorans che non solo viveva in concentrazioni di acido solforico talmente forti da dissolvere il metallo, ma non avrebbe potuto farne a meno. Un’altra specie, Micrococcus radiophilus, viveva beatamente nei contenitori per le scorie dei reattori nucleari, dove si rimpinzava plutonio e di quant’altro mai vi fosse contenuto.
I batteri, non dimentichiamolo, hanno vissuto per miliardi di anni senza di noi; noi, al contrario, non riusciremmo a sopravvivere un solo giorno senza di loro.

Ma come fai ad ascoltare roba del genere? Già.. come faccio? Non lo so. L’ascolto volentieri in auto, a passeggio, sulla cyclette, non posso ascoltarla da sdraiato: cinque minuti e poi… più non sento, e mi addormento, mi addormento, mi addormeeentoo!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8qUQ...

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