Nothing much going on today. Might as well share my most recent reads.<\/p>\n
A Short History of Nearly Everything<\/a><\/em> – Bill Bryson<\/p>\n My master reading list isn\u2019t complete; I didn\u2019t really start digitizing it until the mid-to-late 2000s, so a lot of books I read in the first decade of this century aren\u2019t accounted for.[1]<\/a> So I know I\u2019ve read a few of Bill Bryson\u2019s travel books, I\u2019m just not certain how many.<\/p>\n This, however, is not a travel book. It is exactly what the title suggests: a short history of nearly everything. At least from a scientific perspective. From the beginning of the universe and its composition to the world of elements and atoms and molecules to the development of life on earth, Bryson hits just about everything. He shares a ton of incredibly large or exceptionally small numbers to explain the size of things, and always finds a way to put those into a perspective that you can understand. And it is all written with his normal wit and good humor.<\/p>\n What kept striking me as I read it, though, was how much has changed or been newly discovered since the book was published in 2003. I\u2019ve been reading some articles about deep space exploration and universe formation theory recently, and they all pushed well beyond what Bryson wrote about nearly two decades ago. I\u2019m sure that is true in many other areas that he covers. More than undermining my enjoyment of the book, it made me appreciate how much we are still learning about who we are, where we live, and how we got here.<\/p>\n
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