What is Reddit's opinion of A Short History of Nearly Everything?

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If you are looking for something that doesn't just explain physics but includes other sciences --- I highly recommend 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' by Bill Bryson.

He is not a scientist but a novelist who worked with scientists to put their concepts into a book a layman can understand. It covers subjects from the Big Bang to Chemistry to Plate Tectonics to Human Evolution and everything in between.

I haven't found any other book that makes the process of learning science so engaging. Every time I do a re-listen (it's fantastic as an audiobook) it reminds me everything in the universe is interconnected in a way religious texts can't match.

a really good starting book is

A short history of nearly everything

author Bill Bryson (born in Des Moines, Iowa, living in the UK most of his life) discovered he knew next to nothing about how stuff works. How we know things. Not because of a religious upbringing, but just because he was a hardcore linguist and had never studied science subjects. So he did what he does best, research and ask tons of people about everything and then he wrote a book.

And what a book! To quote the first 5 star reviewer in view on amazon: (almost everybody gives it 5 stars)
>" I cannot think of any other single-volume book I have ever read that was as informative, entertaining, and broad in scope as this classic. Not having excelled in science, nor been much interested in it when I was younger, this gem is a massive refresher course on everything I ever learned about science, and then some."

This book is an excellent introduction in every scientific subject you can think of and dozens others you never heard of. After reading it you can select those fields of study that interest you most and find books by scientists in that field that go deeper.

There are many editions of this book, including a fully illustrated one.

you should give a <em>Short History of Nearly Everything</em> a read. he goes over in glorious and awed detail every major discipline of science and does his best to tie them all together and show how perspectives have changed through history.

Bryson has the advantage of not being a scientist, so he asked the sort of seemingly stupid questions you're no doubt having trouble with and then he is a really a very engaging writer too. highly recommended.

also, you can take a community college class on Biological Anthropology, or any beginning anthropology class really and they will teach you all about where you came from. this is also highly recommended.

A Short History of Nearly Everything.

It gives a brief look into many different branches of science, along with some scientific history. The writing could have been done a bit better, but I have never read a single book that forced me to put it down to just say "Wow" as much as this one did. I keep a spare copy around in case a friend wants to check it out.

Question: does Bill Bryson get credit for having written a book that quite nearly approximates the title of this little screed?

Answer: to my mind, yes. Bryson published said book several years before this bit was made and while he doesn't pretend to be a scientist, he does interview many of the world's leading thinkers and writes lucidly and intelligently and humorously about how a variety of complex concepts can be understood by lay-people.

Edit: oh yeah, here's the link to Bryson's book.

What about A Short History of Nearly Everything? Or Seal Team Six? Or The Magicians? What about American Gods, Hyperspace and The Grand Design

What I'm saying is 18 is too few. Get cracking.

Hey mate, as someone who has gone through exactly the same thought process as yourself, I really want to encourage you. It really is a difficult thing to go through, because your whole reality changes as your core beliefs shift. And it feels isolating as it's often an impossible subject to talk about objectively with Christian family and friends.

You are in a quest for truth, so I have a few thoughts for you, based on what I've learnt over the years.

1. Get educated on Psychology. Psychology underpins all our beliefs, so having an understanding of how beliefs are formed and how to avoid inbuilt biases is absolutely invaluable. I don't have a good book recommendation on this, maybe other redditors could help, or this page has some recommendations

2. Get educated on science. Coming from a Christian background, I was always taught to think in a certain way about science. As I became more educated on how science actually works, I realised that many of my biases had affected my understanding and interpretation of science. If you're looking for truth, there's no better place to get truth than with a scientific understanding of the world and universe around us. Read A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. This will give you a great foundation on science, in a very easy to read format.

3. Get educated on the Bible. There are some excellent modern scholars with very insightful views on the Bible and how it was actually put together. As Christian's beliefs are underpinned by the Bible, it is important to get an accurate perspective on where the Bible actually came from. A good place to start would be to read Jesus, Interrupted by Bart Ehrman

Finally I wouldn't recommend reading "The God Delusion" or some of the more militant atheist books as some have recommended here. While it's interesting and makes some good arguments, it also has a multitude of holes and bad arguments, and comes from a place of ignorance on Christian theology. Leave it to later.

Instead get educated and come to your own conclusions rather than allowing an atheistic view to be pushed onto you.

I was listening to A Short History of Nearly Everything on the ride into work today and was surprised to learn this.

Not really related to world history but a great book: http://www.amazon.com/Short-History-Nearly-Everything/dp/0767908171

Bill Bryson has some answers. I found this on reddit from people recommending books. This book is awesome and will help with all questions regarding that and then some http://www.amazon.com/Short-History-Nearly-Everything/dp/0767908171

Came here to say that...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0767908171/?tag=borders-detail-20

Music - N/A

Books - short history of nearly everything......... genome.......... demon haunted world.

Movies - Life of Brian, The Kite Runner, The Da Vinci Code (yea yea), Matrix

Shows - Anything comedy really...

People - Mark Twain, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Einstein, Sagan.

However... coming to peace with it took much more than just these influences... it took a lot of research, understanding of science (physics, chem, etc), philosophy (Socrates, Plato, Nietzsche), and a lot of youtube videos and online discussion that helped me form my words into how my emotions felt.

That's an angelfire site... that's basically like myspace. Ask for a credible source, and why all of them agree with the big bang evidence.

And besides, you should be able to do this. Read this book if you can't do it yourself.

http://www.amazon.com/Short-History-Nearly-Everything/dp/0767908171

Also understand the idea of asking the right questions... as discussed by Tyson.

Check out Bill Bryson's Short History of Nearly Everything. Phenom read on the history of pretty much everything, as in the title...

A Short History of Nearly Everything http://www.amazon.com/Short-History-Nearly-Everything/dp/0767908171

PM if you are interested.

So it's settled. Humphrey Davy may have pulled a Romney and flip-flopped but that does not excuse the fact that Britain decided to ignore that the word had been changed. Get over yourselves and start pronouncing it THE RIGHT WAY!

On another note... If you don't read Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything you are severely missing out on how fucking cool everything is.