A Short History of Nearly Everything

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Okay, so here's my Bill Bryson story. I was in The Gladstone, a public house not too far from this very keyboard, with my friend Yvonne, who will remain nameless. We had been imbibing more than freely. A guy approached our table and asked me in a sly surreptitious manner if I was him. Him who? Was I Bill Bryson? Now it is true that I bear a very slight resemblance that they assemble in such a willing manner is only part o f what got you here. To be here now, alive in the twenty-first century and smart enough to know i t you also had to be the beneficiary o f an extraordinary string o f

Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night; God said, Let Newton be! and all was light. —Alexander Pope becomes 6.5 x 106. The principle is based very simply on multiples o f ten: 10 x 10 Cor 100) becomes 102; 10 x 10 x 10 (o r 1,000) is 103; and so on, obviously and indef­ initely. The little superscript number signifies the number o f zeroes following the larger principal number. Negative notations provide essentially a m irror image, with the superscript number indicating the num ber o f spaces to the right o f the decimal point (so 104 means 0.0001). Though I salute the principle, it remains an amazement to m e that anyone seeing '1.4 x 10s km3' would see at once that that sig­ nifies 1.4 billion cubic kilometers, and no less a wonder that they would choose the former over the latter in print (especially in a book designed for the general reader, where the example was found). On the assumption that m any general readers are as unmathematical as I am, I will use them sparingly, though they are occasionally unavoidable, not least in a chapter dealing with things on a cosmic scale. Suppose, by way o f example, that you and I decided we wished to know how far it is to the Moon. Using triangulation, the first thing we must do is put some distance between us, so let’s say for argument that you stay in Paris and I go to Moscow and we both look at the Moon at the same time. Now if you imagine a line connecting the three principals o f this exercise-that is, you and I and the M o o n -it forms a tri­ angle Measure the length o f the baseline between you and m e and the angles o f our two com ers and the rest can be simply calculated. (Because the interior angles o f a triangle always add up to 180 degrees, if you know the sum o f two o f the an­ gles you can instantly calculate the third; and knowing the precise shape o f a tri­ angle and the length o f one side tells you the lengths o f the other sides.) This was in fact the method use by a Greek astronomer, Hipparchus o f Nicaea, in 150 B.C. to work out the Moon’s distance from Earth. At ground level, the principles o f trian­ gulation are the same, except that the triangles don’t reach into space but rather are laid side to side on a map. In measuring a degree o f meridian, the surveyors would create a sort o f chain of triangles marching across the landscape. 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.

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Staff of BBC Focus (July 2006). "How to... Make a Mint From Science". BBC Focus: 54. {{ cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= ( help) Bryson also marvels at how scientists learn the things they know, and he wonders why so much science writing depicts the history of scientific discovery as abstract, dull, and technical. Bryson explains that his motivation for writing this book arose from his realization that he knows very little science himself, because he found most science textbooks boring and inaccessible during his education. His aim is to see if it’s possible to write science in a way that makes the reader marvel at the history of life on Earth and to become more curious about the task of scientific inquiry.

A Short History of Nearly Everything by American-British author Bill Bryson is a popular science book that explains some areas of science, using easily accessible language that appeals more to the general public than many other books dedicated to the subject. It was one of the bestselling popular science books of 2005 in the United Kingdom, selling over 300,000 copies. [1] Few books have been as influential on my life as Bill Bryson’s A Very Brief History of Nearly Everything. When I first read it at the age of 8, my love for science was ignited in a way that set my life on a fantastic course. I remember devouring it and becoming fascinated by all the wonders of life that have been discovered through the years. A thoroughly enjoyable, as well as educational, experience. Nobody who reads it will ever look at the world around them in the same way again' Daily Express In his book, he accomplishes an important thing, one of the most important things - he presents the data while at the same time never letting go of the terribly exciting feeling of discovery, and presenting information about the discoverers themselves. It's obvious that he did a lot of research, but it's also obvious that these things fascinated him, and he grabs the reader's hand and runs headlong into the unexplored. And it is a world full of wonders.

The extraordinary Bill Bryson takes us from the Big Bang to the dawn of science in this book about basically everything. I won't bother you with all the scientific stuff I learned. Instead, I compiled a top 5 list of the frightful fates of some scientists. We 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. we may soon begin to find other even larger icy spheres in the same por­ tion o f space. Then we w ill have problems. After Christy spotted Pluto’s moon, astronomers began to regard that section o f the cosmos more at­ tentively and as o f early December 2002 had found over six hundred ad­ ditional Trans-Neptunian Objects, or Plutinos as they are alternatively called. One, dubbed Varuna, is nearly as big as Pluto’s moon. Astronomers now think there may be billions of these objects. The difficulty is that many o f them are awfully dark. Typically they have an albedo, or reflec­ tiveness, o f just 4 percent, about the same as a lump o f charcoal-and o f course these lumps o f charcoal are about four billion miles away.

significantly improved on Cavendish’s measurements o f 1797. The current best estimate for Earth’s weight is 5.9725 billion trillion metric tons, a dif­ ference o f only about 1 percent from Cavendish’s finding. Interestingly, all o f this merely confirmed estimates made by Newton 110 years before Cavendish without any experimental evidence at all. So, by the late eighteenth century scientists knew very precisely the shape and dimensions o f the Earth and its distance from the Sun and plan­ ets; and now Cavendish, without even leaving home, had given them its weight So you might think that determining the age o f the Earth would be relatively straightforward. After all, the necessary materials were liter­ ally at their feet But no. Human beings would split the atom and invent television, nylon, and instant coffee before they could figure out the age o f their own planet To understand why, we must travel north to Scotland and begin with a brilliant and genial man, o f whom few have ever heard, who had just in­ vented a new science called geology. falsity of the science (most blatantly around cosmology, but not limited to any one field) and misunderstanding of scientific principles; BILL BRYSON *A Short History of Nearly Everything A uthor of A Walk in the Woods and In a Sunburned Country Although virtually all books find a space ibr him, there is a striking variability in the details associated with Ussher. Some books say he made his pronouncement in 1650, others in 1654, still others in 1664. Many cite the date o f Earth’s reputed be­ This is Bill Bryson's reasoning that we all know we have thought to ourselves but never dared ask; often more than once. The book he has written justifies his view, and makes the word of science seem like an interesting, bright and often mind-blowing world of its own, that we can understand.Bryson goes on to emphasize just how vast the universe is and how distant Earth is from other celestial bodies: Pluto, for instance, is billions of miles away, and it remains elusive to this day. There are hundreds of billions of other galaxies in addition to the hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way. Bryson also notes that what we perceive when we stargaze is actually an image of the past since the vastness of the cosmos means it takes light years (trillions of kilometers) for the light from stars to reach Earth. Bryson then focuses on how our solar system was formed over four billion years ago through a chance gathering of an enormous gas cloud (the sun) and tiny grains of dust colliding until they formed planets. Earth’s carbon dioxide-containing atmosphere created a “greenhouse effect” which concentrated the sun’s rays and warmed the planet. These conditions established an environment suitable for life, which began 500 million years later. Four billion years after organic compounds first emerged on Earth, life as we know it today exists. Almost at once things began to go wrong, sometimes spectacularly so. In Quito, the visitors somehow provoked the locals and were chased out o f town by a mob armed with stones. Soon after, the expedition’s doctor was murdered in a misunderstanding over a woman. The botanist became deranged. Others died o f fevers and falls. The third most senior member o f the party, a man named Pierre Godin, ran off with a thirteen-year-old girl and could not be induced to return. At one point the group had to suspend work for eight months while La Condamine rode off to Lima to sort out a problem with their permits. Eventually he and Bouguer stopped speaking and refused to work to­ gether. Everywhere the dwindling party went it was met with the deepest suspicions from officials who found it difficult to believe that a group o f French scientists would travel halfway around the world to measure the world. That made no sense at all. Two and a half centuries later it still seems a reasonable question. Why didn’t the French make their measure­ ments in France and save themselves all the bother and discomfort o f their Andean adventure? The answer lies partly with the fact that eighteenth-century scientists, the French in particular, seldom did things simply if an absurdly demand­ ing alternative was available, and partly with a practical problem that had first arisen with the English astronomer Edmond Halley many years be­ The ultimate eye-opening journey through time and space, A Short History of Nearly Everything is the biggest-selling popular science book of the 21st century and has sold over 2 million copies. In “A Really Short History of Nearly Everything” Bill Bryson does it again. He takes an impossible subject, and makes it not only readable, but fun, lively, and it still remains informative. More than informative, actually, it is insightful. Very insightful. Edwin Hubble (1889-1953) was an American astronomer who is known for playing a vital role in the development of extragalactic astronomy. What became of Edwin Hubble after his death at his home on the 28th of September 1953, is a mystery. The whereabouts of his body were known only to his widow. It is not known whether he was buried or cremated or where his remains now lie. This secret his widow took to her own grave. His wife who adored him, devoted years of her life to writing an almost mythical account of her husband's life, much of which is evidently false.

Gratzer, Walter (August 2003). "A stranger in a strange land". Nature. 424 (6950): 725. Bibcode: 2003Natur.424..725G. doi: 10.1038/424725a. ISSN 1476-4687. S2CID 4418326.

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Bryson's dead serious: this is a history of pretty much everything there is -- the planet, the solar system, the universe -- as well as a history of how we've come to know as much as we do. A book on science written by a non-scientist, this a perfect bridge between the humanities and the natural sciences. A course in the history of science should be mandatory for every teenager, and this should be the textbook. Ayers, Kate (January 23, 2011). "Review – A Short History of Nearly Everything". Bookreporter.com. Archived from the original on August 8, 2017 . Retrieved June 30, 2018. to retire to a safe place to observe the spectacle. Unfortunately, there is nowhere to retire to because outside the singularity there is no where. When the universe begins to expand, it won’t be spreading out to fill a larger emptiness. The only space that exists is the space it creates as it goes. It is natural but wrong to visualize the singularity as a kind o f pregnant dot hanging in a dark, boundless void. But there is no space, no darkness. The singularity has no "around" around it There is no space for it to oc­ cupy, no place for it to be. We can’t even ask how long it has been therewhether it has just lately popped into being, like a good idea, or whether it has been there forever, quietly awaiting the right m om ent Time doesn’t exist There is no past for it to emerge from. And so, from nothing, our universe begins. In a single blinding pulse, a moment o f glory much too swift and ex­ pansive for any form o f words, the singularity assumes heavenly dimen­ sions, space beyond conception. In the first lively second (a second that many cosmologists will devote careers to shaving into ever-finer wafers) is produced gravity and the other forces that govern physics. In less than a minute the universe is a million billion miles across and growing fast There is a lot o f heat now, ten billion degrees o f it enough to begin the nu­ clear reactions that create the lighter elements-prindpally hydrogen and helium, with a dash (about one atom in a hundred million) o f lithium. In three minutes, 98 percent o f all the matter there is or will ever be has been produced. We have a universe. It is a place o f the most wondrous and grat­ ifying possibility, and beautiful, too. And it was all done in about the time it takes to make a sandwich. When this moment happened is a matter o f some debate. Cosmolo­ gists have long argued over whether the moment o f creation was 10 billion years ago or twice that or something in between. The consensus seems to be heading for a figure o f about 13.7 billion years, but these things are no­ toriously difficult to measure, as we shall see further on. All that can really be said is that at some indeterminate point in the very distant past for rea­ sons unknown, there came the moment known to science as t = 0. We were on our way. There is o f course a great deal we don’t know, and much o f what we This is my favourite audio book from audible so far. At first the narrator was slightly irritating, he sounds like the kind of "crazy professor" types they get to host pop science shows for kids, but after a while he grew on me, and in the end I think it was very well narrated. Only half a dozen times in recorded history have supemovae been close enough to be visible to the naked eye. One was a blast in 1054 that created the Crab Nebula. Another, in 1604, made a star bright enough to be seen during the day for over three weeks. The most recent was in 1987, when a supernova flared in a zone o f the cosmos known as the Large Mag­ ellanic Cloud, but that was only barely visible and only in the southern hemisphere-and it was a comfortably safe 169,000 light-years away.