Author | Bill Bryson |
---|---|
Language | English |
Genre | Non-fiction |
Publisher | Doubleday (UK) Broadway Books (US) |
Publication date | 2003 |
Media type | Print (Hardcover, Paperback, E-Book) |
ISBN | 0-7679-0817-1 |
OCLC | 51900381 |
500 21 | |
LC Class | Q162 .B88 2003 |
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]
A Short History deviates from Bryson's popular travel book genre, instead describing general sciences such as chemistry, paleontology, astronomy, and particle physics. In it, he explores time from the Big Bang to the discovery of quantum mechanics, via evolution and geology.
Bill Bryson wrote this book because he was dissatisfied with his scientific knowledge—that was, not much at all. He writes that science was a distant, unexplained subject at school. Textbooks and teachers alike did not ignite the passion for knowledge in him, mainly because they never delved into the whys, hows, and whens.
"It was as if [the textbook writer] wanted to keep the good stuff secret by making all of it soberly unfathomable."
— Bryson, on the state of science books used within his school [2]
Bryson describes graphically and in layperson's terms the size of the universe and that of atoms and subatomic particles. He then explores the history of geology and biology and traces life from its first appearance to today's modern humans, emphasizing the development of the modern Homo sapiens . Furthermore, he discusses the possibility of the Earth being struck by a meteorite and reflects on human capabilities of spotting a meteor before it impacts the Earth, and the extensive damage that such an event would cause. He also describes some of the most recent destructive disasters of volcanic origin in the history of our planet, including Krakatoa and Yellowstone National Park.
A large part of the book is devoted to relating humorous stories about the scientists behind the research and discoveries and their sometimes eccentric behaviours. Bryson also speaks about modern scientific views on human effects on the Earth's climate and livelihood of other species, and the magnitude of natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, hurricanes, and the mass extinctions caused by some of these events.
An illustrated edition of the book was released in November 2005. [3] A few editions in audiobook form are also available, including an abridged version read by the author, and at least three unabridged versions.
The book received generally favourable reviews, with reviewers citing the book as informative, well-written, and entertaining. [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]
In 2004, this book won Bryson The Aventis Prizes for Science Books for best general science book. [9] Bryson later donated the GBP£10,000 prize to the Great Ormond Street Hospital children's charity. [10]
In 2005, the book won the EU Descartes Prize for science communication. [11] It was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for the same year.
William McGuire Bryson is an American–British journalist and author. Bryson has written a number of nonfiction books on topics including travel, the English language, and science. Born in the United States, he has been a resident of Britain for most of his adult life, returning to the U.S. between 1995 and 2003, and holds dual American and British citizenship. He served as the chancellor of Durham University from 2005 to 2011.
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A science book is a work of nonfiction, usually written by a scientist, researcher, or professor like Stephen Hawking, or sometimes by a non-scientist such as Bill Bryson. Usually these books are written for a wide audience presumed to have a general education rather than a specifically scientific training, as opposed to the very narrow audience that a scientific paper would have, and are therefore referred to as popular science. As such, they require considerable talent on the part of the author to sufficiently explain difficult topics to people who are totally new to the subject, and a good blend of storytelling and technical writing. In the UK, the Royal Society Prizes for Science Books are considered to be the most prestigious awards for science writing. In the US, the National Book Awards briefly had a category for science writing in the 1960s, but now they just have the broad categories of fiction and nonfiction.
Richard Alan Fortey is a British palaeontologist, natural historian, writer and television presenter, who served as president of the Geological Society of London for its bicentennial year of 2007.
Philip Ball is a British science writer. For over twenty years he has been an editor of the journal Nature, for which he continues to write regularly. He is a regular contributor to Prospect magazine and a columnist for Chemistry World, Nature Materials, and BBC Future.
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The Mohole Mystery is a juvenile science fiction novel, the eleventh in Hugh Walters' Chris Godfrey of U.N.E.X.A. series. It was published in the UK by Faber in 1968, in the US by Criterion Books in 1969 under the title The Mohole Menace. It was also published in French as Pionniers des ténèbres, by Éditions de l'Amitié in 1973 and as A ameaça de Mohole in Portuguese by Edições Dêagã.
In the history of thermodynamics, On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances is a 300-page paper written by American chemical physicist Willard Gibbs. It is one of the founding papers in thermodynamics, along with German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz's 1882 paper "Thermodynamik chemischer Vorgänge." Together they form the foundation of chemical thermodynamics as well as a large part of physical chemistry.
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