Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Bryson's History of Everything
If your roving eye ever encounters a nondescript paperback, at your favorite bookstore, which goes by the interesting title of “A Short History of Nearly Everything” and you ignore it with the logical (going by the name) presumption that this is just another history book, it would be the biggest insult to its writer, Bill Bryson. Simply put, Bill gives you a history of Science right from the Big Bang through science in Newton’s era and Einstein’s era to the present day. Reading Bryson, physics, couldn’t be more simple (David Bodanis in his wonderful book E=MC2 comes a close second) and more fun. The book is interspersed with rich trivia, humorous anecdotes and amazing personalities. It’s also education in physics that our text books could not muster. And for those who after reading this would mistake Bill to be a Richard Feynman making science easy should know that Bill Bryson probably did not understand any science before researching on writing this book. That’s a remarkable feat. Grab a copy and be enlightened.
