Had this book been used as an introduction to sciences in our high school or pre-u, I guess many of us might have chosen a different career.
Science teachers would do well to pique the interest of their students by using this book during the course of their teaching.
The book covers a wide range of subjects like from physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy, meteorology, etc, and the major discoveries of
each subject from beginning of time till present. If you are curious to know how were things discovered, or what kind of thoughts that led to them,
this book will give you a good insight. Also the light and humorous tone of the author does make it easy to read unlike the pedantic tone of our science
textbooks.
Not only does it explain the major physical laws in layman terms, this book also gives us a glimpse of the scientists' life at that time,
their beliefs, the rivalries among them, their sacrifice (often hopeless, tragic, and hilarious at times), their thoughts,
the questions that were asked at that time that led to birth of theories and much more ! In fact, I find that their stories are sometimes more
fascinating than their discoveries. For instance, I didn't know that Isaac Newton main interest was alchemy
(rumor had it that he drank mercury in some of the experiments). Nor did I know that Werner Heisenberg himself didn't even know what a matrix is
before he came out with what is now known as the Uncertainty Principle for quantum mechanics.
Having read it, one cannot help but wonder how improbable it is to be alive and living on this planet
and how little we understand what's around us even in this century.
A Short History of Nearly Everything, how to write a science text book
Jul 9 2013, 10:55 AM, updated 13y ago
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