Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything covers nearly everything in the “real science” category (Daughter’s definition.) Since I was a social science major, all of my “real science” classes came in this historical package. Reading this book was a review of every science class I took from elementary school through college.
When flipping through the TV channels, I tend to settle on anything having to do with physics: universe, cosmos, multiple big bangs. If physics isn’t available, I find any other science show on NatGeo, Discovery, Science, whatever. Reading this book was like reading the transcript from one of these shows.
Bryson was clearly interested in his topic of science but he seemed especially interested with the scientists connected to a particular topic. Bryson details personality, marital exploits, familial tangles and colleague competitiveness. Scientists it seems often don’t get along with others very well.
Even with all the that we do know
The upshot of all of this is that we live in a universe whose age we can’t quite compute, surrounded by starts 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.
Bryson is often droll, using phrasing that reminded me of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Comfortable and enjoyable book.
