#ashone

About : Bill Bryson describes himself as a reluctant traveller, but even when he stays safely at home he can't contain his curiosity about the world around him. A Short History of Nearly Everything is his quest to understand everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization - how we got from there, being nothing at all, to here, being us. Bill Bryson's challenge is to take subjects that normally bore the pants off most of us, like geology, chemistry and particle physics, and see if there isn't some way to render them comprehensible to people who have never thought they could be interested in science. As a result, A Short History of Nearly Everything reveals the world in a way most of us have never seen it before.

Author: Bill Bryson

Rating: 4/5 ✨

This book was bloody brilliant. I started reading this in October of 2021 (I know, I know) and it is one of the few non-fiction books that I have picked out of pure interest. I was doing geography at the time and my friend recommended I borrow her copy and read it - I’m so glad I did. If I’m being honest most of this stuff a lot of people will either know or it can easily be googled and found on Wikipedia or even in textbooks, usually (for some) this would be a mundane and dull experience, but Bryson has such a way with words that he makes the information somewhat interesting and even comedic at times. Bill Bryson is what I would call factumanus, he is able to manipulate information and facts in a way that makes it easier to understand as well as immersing for people who have no prior knowledge or interest about evolution or the structure of the earth. The first half of the book is definitely more ‘physical’ science and by that, I mean it mainly covers astronomy, physics, chemistry, and earth sciences (meteorology and geology). This was definitely my favourite half because as much as I love biology and evolution, there is something about the stepping-stones that lead us to evolution and by that, I mean how earth was formed or how certain chemicals played a part to create the climate we live in. The latter half of the book is mainly life science, to be more specific biology and genetics. This is Part 5 (Life itself) Part 6 (The Road to Us), where Bryson talks about the famous Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution as well as cell biology and evolving from apes. I am definitely more a physical scientist, albeit I do biology - the chemistry behind life as well as earth are where my interests are at. That being said my favourite parts of the book were definitely Part 3 (A New Ages Dawn) and Part 4 (Dangerous planet). To quickly summarise the book, Lost in cosmos is the first part of the book here Bryson essentially writes about how the universe is formed. Whilst explaining he credits theories like the Big Bang and the inflation. He then goes in depth about our universe as well as other planets in our solar system, discussing a key idea that if one thing was ever so slightly different that we may have not been present today and I wouldn’t be writing this review. In part 2, The size of the Earth, Bryson starts off with a bang or more like an apple dropping with Isaac Newton. If I’m being honest, I wish he went more in depth with Newton, as he predominately talked about his laws and his discoveries. The size of the earth mainly focuses on geology and chemistry, he name drops some big shots like James Hutton (Scottish geologist), Dmitri Mendeleev (Russian chemist) and Marie Curie (Polish-French Physicist). Fun fact about Curie most of her stuff is still radioactive, as they are contaminated in radium as a matter-of-fact Marie Curie is still radioactive and it’s the reason she died (she died from aplastic anaemia which is linked to high levels of radiation). Part 3 (A new age dawn) discussed theories such as Einstein’s relative theory and Planck’s quantum theory. Since A new age Dawn encompasses all of the 20th century, Bryson talks about a lot of big shots that helped discovered the atom for example Rutherford and Bohr. Astronomy is also a big part of the section to name drop someone who is worth googling Henrietta Swan Leavitt who discovered a correlation between period and luminosity of stars.

The title of part 4 is basically what Bryson writes about – how dangerous earth is. KT impact is mentioned, which is how dinosaurs became extinct by an asteroid. He also talks about one of my favourite topics – natural disasters. Natural disasters can be caused by a number of different causes, a big one being tectonic activity. However, scientist have discovered ways to predict some natural disasters – seismology. Seismology is the study of earthquakes; its name derives from ancient Greek – ‘seismós’ meaning earthquakes and ‘logía’ meaning study of. Seismology is just the study of waves (P and S waves) propagating through earth. Part 5 discusses the oceans as well as the atmosphere. Bill Bryson also talks about mammals and dinosaurs and Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection (species that are able to adapt and survive to pass on the following characteristics for future offspring). I would recommend doing some research on Darwin as a lot of factors during that time affected the publication of his theory. To bring the summaries to a close, The Road to Us ends on a more sombre note. Bryson starts off explaining and talking about the link between humans and apes and ends with him educating the reader about how human activity has caused extinction for a great amount of species. He makes a point that a lot of people are finally realising, in the future we are going to have to take a lot of care into earth and not be so reckless. Bryson’s research is so thorough that I can’t fault it, as someone who is not a scientist Bryson took a lot of care in researching all the nitty gritty details that I and many others most certainly would have not known. Yes, this can be easily googled. Yes, what Bryson is saying is nothing new. However, Bryson has a way with words that makes learning about science extremely fun!

Factumanus - someone who is able to manipulate facts