Book 21: A Short History of Nearly Everything

A Short History of Nearly Everything
Bill Bryson
2003
478 pp.
Rating: 5 of 5

I think that Bryson has nailed it on the head here. The natural world around us is basically unknown to us. Those who understand its deep mysteries spend years becoming experts and don't know how to explain it all to anyone. Moreover, I'm not sure that we'd really get it. The universe is a bizarre place that life here on earth hasn't really prepared us to understand -- which is kind of logical, when you think about it. We don't really need to understand the macro world of the universe or the micro world of physics (and biology) to really get by, so why would most of us ever need to really try?

I guess you might reasonably ask at this point, "why read a book about things we can't really understand (or apply to our lives)?"  I don't have good answer to that, other than "why not try?"

Actually, I do think it's incumbent on us to try and understand the world we live in. Understanding the physical world/universe might just help us be better human beings. Plus I think that one of the big problems of the world is a general lack of inquisitiveness... so let's go!

I'm not even going to go much into the content of the book here - let's just say it includes the creation of the universe, how we figured out what our planet is made of, how old the earth is, animal and plant biology, and much much more. The book is a history of scientific thought (mistaken thought, more often than not!), and shows us how little we understand about the world we live in, and how little time we've understood what we now know. [which, given the historical evidence, could largely turn out to be mistaken]

In the end, the book does really make you look upon life - even your own life - as an amazing and precious thing. As Bryson points out, a whole lot of things (accidents mainly) had to happen over 10 billion years or so, in order for me to sit here typing at this moment. Matter in the early universe had to get dispersed in the right way for a big clump of it to form together (the Earth); various species (the majority of known species) had to go extinct while the one branch leading to homo sapiens survived, which then somehow attained consciousness; all of my ancestors had to meet and copulate at the right moment in time; etc. etc.! That's not even counting all the stuff that makes me (cells, etc.) continue along as planned.

It really is crazily improbable that you, gentle reader, or I should exist. While I'm not quite ready to consider God as a plausible explanation for existence (somehow adding an omniscient diety into the mix just seems to add a layer of improbably complexity!),  it is quite humbling to consider the lengths to which nature had to go to create this world, and these sacks of water and protein for us to exist in.

Comments

[nedra]

This is on my short stack of things to read, (not to be confused with any Booker Prize shortlist or the like, they're just closest to my bed and hence might be picked up when feeling like a lounge and a read). Your review makes me want to move it to the top.