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rastephe 's review for:
A Short History of Nearly Everything
by Bill Bryson
Bryson is funny and I knew he'd make this topic interesting to read about. He did. He also, however, seems to be enamored of very large and very small numbers. There were times, when reading the section about the universe especially, that I needed a machete to whack my way through the jungle of digits (he also dislikes scientific notation - be prepared for a lot of zeroes and ridiculous numbers like "ten trillion trillion").
I get it. The universe is very, very big. Atoms are very, very small. We don't have the capacity to truly understand the scale of either. I found his comparisons (a line of tables scattered with salt in which one searched for the addition of a single grain, representing the star field in which an astronomer searched for the appearance of nebulas) to be more helpful than the big numbers he kept lobbing at me.
I would have sorely appreciated a gross-out warning as I ate my lunch whilst reading of the alchemist who distilled 50 buckets of urine into a "noxious paste". And while that story was interesting, he failed to explain just *how* people figured out a more efficient (and less vomit-inducing) method for phosphorous production. This was a repeating theme of the book: quirky anecdote showing just how far off early scientists were, followed by who figured out the truth, but without explanation. Perhaps that's not as funny and interesting, but I may have learned something instead of being merely entertained.
Bryson also participates in the erasure of women in science. I know that historically, women were less involved (ie. welcome) in the sciences, but Bryson writes at length about chemist Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and his wife, who was also a chemist and worked with him in their laboratory. Her name is never given. She is reduced to "his wife" and "Mme Lavoisier" repeatedly. Her name was Marie-Anne Pierette Paulze. Alternately, Marie Cutie's husband is mentioned by name.
Interesting trivia abounds. I was unaware that the same man with an uncanny knack for unwittingly destroying the planet invented both leaded petrol and CFCs.
After taking a break for half a year, I dove back in and finished the second half. It was an easier read than the first half. A book about the natural history of the world, the universe, history of physics, geology, climate, and the evolution of life cannot possibly cover it all, but Bryson did his best. Often, however, I felt I just didn't have the background to understand a point, or the interest in a particular subject to devote my brain to learning enough background to understand. The chapters on DNA, alternately, I found overly simplistic and didn't learn much new (thank you, BS in genetics).
Overall, an interesting and thoroughly researched, although meandering book. By the end, I just wanted to finish and be done with it.
I get it. The universe is very, very big. Atoms are very, very small. We don't have the capacity to truly understand the scale of either. I found his comparisons (a line of tables scattered with salt in which one searched for the addition of a single grain, representing the star field in which an astronomer searched for the appearance of nebulas) to be more helpful than the big numbers he kept lobbing at me.
I would have sorely appreciated a gross-out warning as I ate my lunch whilst reading of the alchemist who distilled 50 buckets of urine into a "noxious paste". And while that story was interesting, he failed to explain just *how* people figured out a more efficient (and less vomit-inducing) method for phosphorous production. This was a repeating theme of the book: quirky anecdote showing just how far off early scientists were, followed by who figured out the truth, but without explanation. Perhaps that's not as funny and interesting, but I may have learned something instead of being merely entertained.
Bryson also participates in the erasure of women in science. I know that historically, women were less involved (ie. welcome) in the sciences, but Bryson writes at length about chemist Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and his wife, who was also a chemist and worked with him in their laboratory. Her name is never given. She is reduced to "his wife" and "Mme Lavoisier" repeatedly. Her name was Marie-Anne Pierette Paulze. Alternately, Marie Cutie's husband is mentioned by name.
Interesting trivia abounds. I was unaware that the same man with an uncanny knack for unwittingly destroying the planet invented both leaded petrol and CFCs.
After taking a break for half a year, I dove back in and finished the second half. It was an easier read than the first half. A book about the natural history of the world, the universe, history of physics, geology, climate, and the evolution of life cannot possibly cover it all, but Bryson did his best. Often, however, I felt I just didn't have the background to understand a point, or the interest in a particular subject to devote my brain to learning enough background to understand. The chapters on DNA, alternately, I found overly simplistic and didn't learn much new (thank you, BS in genetics).
Overall, an interesting and thoroughly researched, although meandering book. By the end, I just wanted to finish and be done with it.