A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson

Summary

• I have read this book several times. It is a beautiful overview of the basis for a lot of modern scientific thought, along with a dose of humor and wonder that Bryson does so well.
• The main thing I dislike about this book is that after citing facts that point towards creation, he ends it by saying it is evolution.

How I discovered it

• I have always loved Bill Bryson's travel books and so I pretty much read everything he writes

How the book changed me

• It has made me really appreciate the world around me: the earth and all its wonder and delight, animals, insects, the cell. Pretty much everything is more wonderful than we can even imagine.

Details

• The curious story of James Croll shows that you can learn anything if you show an interest.
• The Solar system is huge: Distances in the Solar system are unfathomably vast
• The laws of thermodynamics
• The Universe was created perfectly for existence
• Earth is the exact right kind of planet for life
• Earth is the precise correct distance from the sun
• The chances of life starting spontanously are infinitesimally tiny
• Bacteria are on us, in us and around us in number we cannot imagine
• Our cells are wondrous in ways we cannot even comprehend.

Quotes

• Solar system is perfect. Gorgeous. Its almost uncanny - Geoffrey Marcy
• We live in a universe whose age we cant quite compute - Bill Bryson

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