A brief history of almost everything
A Short History of Nearly Everything is a non-fiction book by Bill Bryson , an American-British science journalist, under the title "2003 A Short History of Nearly Everything " in New York City has been published and has also produced an audio book.
In 30 chapters Bryson gives a summary of the current state of knowledge in the natural sciences - with a special focus on biology , geology , astronomy and physics - and how the earth and its forms of life came into being. He relies on his own extensive reading of the scientific literature and interviews with specialist scientists who advised and informed him during the summary and classification of the scientific discoveries and specialist discussions.
The non-fiction book is a story of the discoveries and explorers in the individual sciences considered here, based on many anecdotes. The focus of the book is on the different personalities and idiosyncrasies of the scientists, and the background of the scientific work, in which plagiarism and cut offs , theories and insights and misjudgments played a role.
This book, which quickly made it onto the bestseller lists in Germany, became the best-selling non-fiction book in England in 2005 and, despite some factual errors and despite its one-sided Anglo-centric focus, won the Descartes Prize of the European Commission for its dissemination of scientific knowledge in the same year Findings.
Topic overview
- Origin of the universe and its atomic components
- Formation of the solar system and the planet earth and the initiation of the first biochemical development processes on earth
- The development and diversity of earthly forms of life
- Serious changes in the earth's climate and the continents due to plate tectonic events, asteroid impacts and volcanic activity
- Formation and changes in species composition through evolution and extinction
- Discovery and role of genes and DNA in inheritance
- Modern man and his living relatives and ancestors ( hominids )
- The history and application of scientific concepts and methods that have led to today's knowledge
content
Bryson puts the emphasis on the development of science, especially on the introduction of new methods and findings that were often in conflict with previous approaches and assumptions. As an example, knowledge about the relative size and nature of the elementary particles , the age of the earth and the discovery of complex geological processes that were obtained by these methods are used. Furthermore, the development of physics from Newton to Einstein is discussed, the postulates of which have contributed to the theory of the Big Bang and the knowledge of an expanding universe. However, findings from the field of mathematics are largely excluded.
Based on paleontological data and the knowledge that all living organisms have the molecule DNA as genetic material, Bryson emphasizes the fact that all life forms can be traced back to a common ancestor. He also emphasizes that humans are still a very young species, which he proves with results from genetic studies that have shown very small genetic differences in human populations. By combining data from paleontology, geology and molecular biology , Bryson records the origins of humans. Human development was presumably favored by the extinction of the dinosaurs and presumably influenced by geological and climatic changes that forced changes in lifestyles and new settlements. According to this, only a series of coincidences made the long development, rich in development interruptions, possible for people, whose previous existence is rather marginal compared to the periods of geological and biological developments.
criticism
The book received praise primarily thanks to the extraordinary narrative talent of its author and the many illustrative examples from most areas of science, which do not stop at errors and deliberate misleading in the same. However, Bryson's focus on “Eurocentric” discoveries, which ignored those of other cultures (e.g. China), was criticized. Some critics have also noted a tendency on the part of the author to be malicious in some of his descriptions.
Factual errors
The book contains some factual errors.
- For example, on page 306, the author claims that in diver's disease , nitrogen bubbles form when the pressure increases. In fact, the proportion of dissolved nitrogen in the blood increases with higher pressure under water; only when the surface is too rapid and the associated drop in pressure occurs, vesicles of gaseous nitrogen form in the blood.
- It is also claimed that in the thermosphere the distance between two molecules is several kilometers (such a low density is not achieved even in the vacuum of space); What is meant here is probably the mean free path or the statement is based on a translation error.
- In Chapter 9, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is incorrectly related to the "path" instead of to the momentum . Chapter 11 speaks of energy in the physically wrong unit " volt ", presumably electron volts are meant.
More errors can be found on wikidot.
expenditure
- Bill Bryson: A Brief History of Almost Everything , Goldmann 2004, translated by Sebastian Vogel , ISBN 3-442-31002-4 , new edition: Munich, Goldmann 2011, ISBN 978-3-442-30122-5 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Staff of BBC Focus: How to ... Make a Mint From Science . 2006.
- ↑ a b c 0767908171 A short history of nearly everything. In: Errata and corrigenda. Retrieved October 11, 2010 (English, detailed overview of errors in the book).
- ↑ British, American and Australian scholars are mentioned in great detail, but thematically more important non-Anglo-Saxon representatives (Galileo, Kepler, Copernicus, Pasteur and others) are hardly mentioned or not mentioned at all.
- ↑ a b c Arno Widmann: Oh Lord, let Bryson rain! In: Perlentaucher.de. March 28, 2007, accessed October 11, 2010 .
- ↑ a b Ernst Horst: Doomsday in anecdotes. Frankfurter General Meeting. FAZ, May 7, 2004, accessed on October 11, 2010 .