A Short History of Nearly EverythingOne of the world’s most beloved writers and New York Times bestselling author of A Walk in the Woods and The Body takes his ultimate journey—into the most intriguing and intractable questions that science seeks to answer. In A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson trekked the Appalachian Trail—well, most of it. In A Sunburned Country, he confronted some of the most lethal wildlife Australia has to offer. Now, in his biggest book, he confronts his greatest challenge: to understand—and, if possible, answer—the oldest, biggest questions we have posed about the universe and ourselves. Taking as territory everything from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization, Bryson seeks to understand how we got from there being nothing at all to there being us. To that end, he has attached himself to a host of the world’s most advanced (and often obsessed) archaeologists, anthropologists, and mathematicians, travelling to their offices, laboratories, and field camps. He has read (or tried to read) their books, pestered them with questions, apprenticed himself to their powerful minds. A Short History of Nearly Everything is the record of this quest, and it is a sometimes profound, sometimes funny, and always supremely clear and entertaining adventure in the realms of human knowledge, as only Bill Bryson can render it. Science has never been more involving or entertaining. |
From inside the book
Page 4
... look if you cut into the planet with a large knife and carefully withdrew a wedge representing about a quarter of its bulk . It's hard to believe that there was ever a time when I had not seen such an illustration before , but evidently ...
... look if you cut into the planet with a large knife and carefully withdrew a wedge representing about a quarter of its bulk . It's hard to believe that there was ever a time when I had not seen such an illustration before , but evidently ...
Page 6
... look at a layer of rock on a canyon wall and tell you how old it was , didn't know anything really . I became gripped by a quiet , unwonted urge to know a lit- tle about these matters and to understand how people figured them out . That ...
... look at a layer of rock on a canyon wall and tell you how old it was , didn't know anything really . I became gripped by a quiet , unwonted urge to know a lit- tle about these matters and to understand how people figured them out . That ...
Page 9
... look enormous . Now pack into that tiny , tiny space about an ounce of matter . Excellent . You are ready to start a universe . I'm assuming of course that you wish to build an inflationary universe . If you'd prefer instead to build a ...
... look enormous . Now pack into that tiny , tiny space about an ounce of matter . Excellent . You are ready to start a universe . I'm assuming of course that you wish to build an inflationary universe . If you'd prefer instead to build a ...
Page 13
... look back to 103 seconds after the moment of creation , when the universe was still so small that you would have needed a microscope to find it . We mustn't swoon over every extraordinary number that comes be- fore us , but it is ...
... look back to 103 seconds after the moment of creation , when the universe was still so small that you would have needed a microscope to find it . We mustn't swoon over every extraordinary number that comes be- fore us , but it is ...
Page 20
... look at a distant galaxy . The only real network of telescopes that scans the skies has been designed and built by the military . " We have been spoiled by artists ' renderings into imagining a clarity of resolution that doesn't exist ...
... look at a distant galaxy . The only real network of telescopes that scans the skies has been designed and built by the military . " We have been spoiled by artists ' renderings into imagining a clarity of resolution that doesn't exist ...
Contents
1 | |
7 | |
19 | |
41 | |
6 | 79 |
PART III | 113 |
DANGEROUS PLANET | 187 |
LIFE ITSELF | 237 |
THE ROAD TO US | 417 |
NOTES | 479 |
BIBLIOGRAPHY | 517 |
9 | 529 |
41 | 536 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
acids actually Africa American ancient animals asteroid astronomer atmosphere atoms australopithecines bacteria bacterium became bones Burgess Shale called Cambrian carbon cells century chemical cloud crater creatures Darwin dinosaurs discovered discovery Earth Ediacaran event existence extinction fact feet Flannery Fortey fossil genes genetic Genome Geological geologist Gould Gribbin Haldane happened hominid Homo erectus Homo habilis hundred ice ages idea known least less living London look Manson crater microbes miles million years ago modern humans molecules Museum mystery named National Natural History Neandertals nearly never ocean Olorgesailie once organisms oxygen paleontologist particles percent perhaps physicist planet proteins Richard Fortey rocks Sagan Science scientific scientists space species specimens suggested surface survive T. H. Huxley Tattersall theory things thought thousand Tim Flannery tiny tion Trefil trilobites types University volcano Yellowstone York
Popular passages
Page 421 - Descended from the apes! My dear, we will hope it is not true. But if it is, let us pray that it will not become generally known.
Page 478 - Having shot down a number, some of which were only wounded, the whole flock swept repeatedly around their prostrate companions, and again settled on a low tree, within twenty yards of the spot where I stood. At each successive discharge, though showers of them fell, yet the affection of the survivors seemed rather to increase; for after a few circuits around the place, they again alighted near me, looking down on their slaughtered companions, with such manifest symptoms of sympathy and concern, as...
Page 75 - I have always thought that the great merit of the "Principles" was that it altered the whole tone of one's mind, and therefore that, when seeing a thing never seen by Lyell, one yet saw it partially through his eyes...
Page 51 - Isaac replied immediately that it would be an Ellipsis, the Doctor struck with joy & amazement asked him how he knew it, why saith he I have calculated it...
Page 386 - You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family.
Page 67 - The world which we inhabit is composed of the materials, not of the earth which was the immediate predecessor of the present, but of the earth, which is ascending from the present, we consider as the third, and which had preceded the land that was above the surface of the sea, while our present land was yet beneath the water of the ocean.
Page 241 - The more I examine the universe and study the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known that we were coming.
Page 390 - I never saw a more striking coincidence; if Wallace had my MS. sketch written out in 1842, he could not have made a better short abstract! Even his terms now stand as heads of my chapters.