A Really Short History of Nearly Everything

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However, I was delighted to find that, apart from standing by itself as a nice little general science introduction book, this more colourful version is also like a nice little summary to the meatier original travelogue to science. P62 ‘Radioactivity is so harmful and long-lasting that even now Marie Curie’s papers are too dangerous to handle. The book received generally favourable reviews, with reviewers citing the book as informative, well-written, and entertaining.

It was difficult getting them to concentrate on ideas that were new, overwhelming and difficult to grasp at the end of a day. The value in this book is its survey of earth’s history (as a planet within the Milky Way) and humankind’s scientific advancements as well as the people responsible.The fact that Mother Nature sends out hundred's of billions of tons of carbon dioxide via volcanoes and dead and decaying flora and fauna was an interesting fact I had neither heard nor considered before now. Few books have been as influential on my life as Bill Bryson’s A Very Brief History of Nearly Everything. 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. On one occasion my six year old interrupted to put forward his idea of moving continents ("like a jigsaw") a whole two pages before plate tectonics were described!

Como dice el título, el libro te hace un repaso de casi todo, centrado en la evolución de la ciencia: cosmología, física, química, geología, paleontología, biología, genética, etc y etc. His bestselling books include The Road to Little Dribbling, Notes from a Small Island, A Walk in the Woods, One Summer and The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid.The illustrations in the book were gorgeous though and I found most of the time when I was getting annoyed with the info dump I was receiving the images on the page could help to make up for it. Can't say as I blame him there; to wit, "reality TV" and the doltish emphasis in this society on how one looks or on how much money one makes rather than on what are we doing to our planet and what can I, as an individual, do about it! As an abridged version intended for younger readers, this volume might be helpful to middle school science teachers for creating curriculum.

We generally read this book once or twice a week just before their bedtime to keep their awesome, developing minds focused on the wonders found in the world of science and discovery. Curiously, this little wonder does leave you feeling that one person truly can make a difference -- whether for good or evil. So when the YA version caught my eye, I jumped to the chance to learn stuff about nearly everything again. But while he worked on the BIG picture, it is the small stuff that really makes me, and should make us wonder.

Everyone needs more understanding of the world around us and the history of science is sadly neglected in our schools ('much more important than the history of monarchs). More thinking, more learning, more questions – luckily there are plenty of answers as well, useful reminders, and even lessons to learn. It is also fun in many ways, using humor and illustrations to explore a topic and make learning interesting. In The Lost Continent, Bill Bryson's hilarious first travel book, he chronicled a trip in his mother's Chevy around small town America. I was amused to find this "really short" version of it, and it's super-super-abridged (I mean, the original is 500+ pages and this one is less than 200 and with pictures) but it's still packed with lots of useful and interesting information and it really does cover nearly everything, from the beginning of the universe up until what we're doing to our planet now, it's a hell of a ride.