A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson is one of the world's most beloved and bestselling writers. In A Short History of Nearly Everything, he takes his ultimate journey-into the most intriguing and consequential questions that science seeks to answer. It's a dazzling quest, the intellectual odyssey of a lifetime, as this insatiably curious writer attempts to understand everything that has transpired from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization. Or, as the author puts it, .how we went from there being nothing at all to there being something, and then how a little of that something turned into us, and also what happened in between and since. This is, in short, a tall order.
To that end, Bill Bryson apprenticed himself to a host of the world's most profound scientific minds, living and dead. His challenge is to take subjects like geology, chemisty, paleontology, astronomy, and particle physics and see if there isn't some way to render them comprehensible to people, like himself, made bored (or scared) stiff of science by school. His interest is not simply to discover what we know but to find out how we know it. How do we know what is in the center of the earth, thousands of miles beneath the surface? How can we know the extent and the composition of the universe, or what a black hole is? How can we know where the continents were 600 million years ago? How did anyone ever figure these things out?
On his travels through space and time, Bill Bryson encounters a splendid gallery of the most fascinating, eccentric, competitive, and foolish personalities ever to ask a hard question. In their company, he undertakes a sometimes profound, sometimes funny, and always supremely clear and entertaining adventurein the realms of human knowledge, as only this superb writer can render it. Science has never been more involving, and the world we inhabit has never been fuller of wonder and delight.

BILL BRYSON is one of the best-selling and best-loved authors writing in English today. His books include A Walk in the Woods, Notes from a Small Island, In a Sunburned Country, Bryson's Dictionary for Writers and Editors, and a memoir of childhood, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. His exploration of scientific knowledge, A Short History of Nearly Everything, earned him the 2004 Aventis Prize. Bryson lives in Britain with his wife and children. The Royal Society, the national academy of science of the UK and the Commonwealth, is at the cutting edge of scientific progress. It supports many leading young scientists, engineers and technologists, influences science policy, debates scientific issues with the public, and much more. It is an independent, charitable body which derives its authority from its over 1,400 Fellows and Foreign Members: distinguished the eminent scientists, engineers and technologists from the United Kingdom, other Commonwealth countries and the Republic of Ireland.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780767908184
ISBN 10	076790818X
Title	A Short History of Nearly Everything
Author	Bill Bryson
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Broadway Books (A Division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc)
Year published	2004-09-14
Number of pages	560
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable