A Short History of Nearly Everything (豆瓣)

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作者: Bill Bryson

ISBN: 9780552997041
页数: 680
定价: £9.99
出版社: Black Swan
出版年: 2004

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简介 · · · · · ·

　　Amazon.co.uk Review
　　What on earth is Bill Bryson doing writing a book of popular science--A Short History of Almost Everything? Largely, it appears, because this inquisitive, much-travelled writer realised, while flying over the Pacific, that he was entirely ignorant of the processes that created, populated and continue to maintain the vast body of water beneath him.
　　In fact, i... (展开全部) 　　Amazon.co.uk Review
　　What on earth is Bill Bryson doing writing a book of popular science--A Short History of Almost Everything? Largely, it appears, because this inquisitive, much-travelled writer realised, while flying over the Pacific, that he was entirely ignorant of the processes that created, populated and continue to maintain the vast body of water beneath him.
　　In fact, it dawned on him that "I didn't know the first thing about the only planet I was ever going to live on". The questions multiplied: What is a quark? How can anybody know how much the Earth weighs? How can astrophysicists (or whoever) claim to describe what happened in the first gazillionth of a nanosecond after the Big Bang? Why can't earthquakes be predicted? What makes evolution more plausible than any other theory? In the end, all these boiled down to a single question--how do scientists do science? To this subject Bryson devoted three years of his life, reading books and journals and pestering the people who know (or at least argue about it); and we non-scientists should be pretty grateful to him for passing his findings on to us.
　　Broadly, his investigations deal with seven topics, all of enormous interest and significance: the origins of the universe; the gradual historical discovery of the size and age of the earth (and the beginnings of the awesome notion of deep time); relativity and quantum theory; the present and future threats to life and the planet; the origins and history of life (dinosaurs, mass extinctions and all); and the evolution of man. Within each of these, he looks at the history of the subject, its development into a modern discipline and the frameworks of theory that now support it. This is a pretty broad brief (life, the universe and everything, in fact), and it's a mark of Bryson's skill that he is able to carve a clear path through the thickets of theory and controversy that infest all these disciplines, all the while maintaining a cracking pace and a fairly judicious tone without obvious longueurs or signs of haste. Even readers fairly familiar with some or all of these areas o! f discourse are likely to learn from A Short History. If not, they will at least be amused--the tone throughout is agreeable, mingling genuine awe with a mild facetiousness that often rises to wit.
　　One compelling theme that appears again and again is the utter unpredictability of the universe, despite all that we think we know about it. Nervous page-turners may care to omit the sensational chapters on the possible ways in which it all might end in disaster--Bryson enumerates with cheerful relish the kind of event that makes you want to climb under the bedclothes: undetectable asteroid colliding with the earth; superheated magma chamber erupting in your back garden; ebola carrier getting off a plane in London or New York; the HIV virus mutating to prevent its destruction in the mosquito's digestive system. Indeed, the chief theme of this sprightly book is the miraculous unlikeliness, in a universe ruled by randomness, of stability and equilibrium--of which one result is ourselves and the complex, fragile planet we inhabit. --Robin Davidson　　

豆瓣成员常用的标签(共58个) · · · · · ·

科普(41) Bill_Bryson(26) 英文(18) 英文原版(14) BillBryson(13) 人文(8) 科普读物(8) non-fiction(7)

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a short history of nearly everything
yyb行百里者半九十

第一次见到这本书，是两年前地铁站的门口，一堆盗版英文书之间，我一下子就被这个书名所吸引了，但后来不知怎的没有买它，也许当时并没有像现在一样能沉下心读600页书的心境吧。前几天在西单图书大厦地下一层又见到它，毫不犹豫地就买了下来，但断断续续用了很久才读完，大部分时间是在早上上班的地铁上读。其实这本书不能在地铁上...... (1回应)

2009-09-16 3/3有用

a popular science book from a great travel book ...
DJ Wombat

After reading the book, I know why Bill Bryson is called "English Master". He easily combines so many things into one book. Following his guidance, you travel f......

2006-10-07 2/2有用来自 Random House Large Print版

科学和科学家的故事，多刺激，无笑点，很感人
moviejunkie(每个人都有自己的十字架要背)

当然这个无笑点是针对bill bryson其他的每一段落都让人笑到肚子疼的大作而言。如果用随便一本普通的科普读物作参照，你会觉得该书它不是科普是哲学的幽默（不要问什么是哲学的幽默，俺不知道！）。讲述分子质子基因光年化石的字里行间充满了对人类这个历史长河中渺小无知的沧海一粟的角色的反思。本读者文科出生，所以该书的...... (1回应)

2009-10-28 1/1有用

A short history of nearly everything
Tiger(有软弱的地方就有欺骗)

We are luck. We are vulnerable. We shall respect the Nature. ......

2009-11-17

Interesting in the first half, a bit boring in t...
bobmiao

This book was given to me as a gift by an American friend. It is the special illustrated edition. I read the first half with great interest, and flipped thro...... (3回应)

2006-01-14 来自 Random House Large Print版