Bill Bryson - A Short History of Nearly Everything


I bought the book about 2 weeks ago and never had a chance to really read it. Yesterday evening while waiting for my hair to dry, I decided to look at a chapter and I started with a chapter in the middle of the book - chapter 16.

I was captured by the book. It talked about the Universe and us. I am so amazed. Like what do we really understand by the Big Bang theory. It take trillions and trillons tons of energy to bang together to make just a you. It talked about how if the earth is just a few miles nearer to the sun, we will not be who we are. The moon is there to ensure that the earth rotates in his own orbit and hey they are many many moons in the entire Universe. Not only that, there is no end to the Universe, no one actually travel there and there could be a meta universe etc.

When I read a chapter last nite and a chapter this morning, I realised we as human beings are so small. When we thought that in the little room we sit daily at work, we seem to own the world, when in actual fact, we own nothing. Today, if the inner core of the earth burnt itself out, the surface of the earth where we live on it now will crumple just like that. When it happened, nothing else happened.

The book is a splendid book, not only on the general knowledge of science but it really made you look at things in right perspective. Next time, when we think we are something and trying to be nasty, we realised we are just tiny organisms in the mega mega Universe. Ironically, when we coined titles like Mr and Ms Universe, we made a laughing stock of ourself in the face of the trillions and trillions of organism living, few we know, many many we yet to know.

Brillant book, easy to read and a wonderful education.