Bill Bryson’s own fascination with science began with a battered old
school book he had when he was about ten or eleven years old. It had an
illustration that captivated him–a diagram showing Earth’s interior as
it would look if you cut into it with a large knife and removed about a
quarter of its bulk. The idea of lots of startled cars and people
falling off the edge of that sudden cliff (and 4,000 miles is a pretty
long way to fall) was what grabbed him in the beginning, but gradually
his attention turned to what the picture was trying to teach him: namely
that Earth’s interior is made up of several different layers of
materials, and at the very centre is a glowing sphere of iron and
nickel,
as hot as the Sun’s surface, according to the caption. And he very clearly remembers thinking: “How do they know that?”
Bill’s storytelling skill makes the “How?” and, just as importantly, the “Who?” of scientific discovery entertaining and accessible for all ages. He covers the wonder and mystery of time and space, the frequently bizarre and often obsessive scientists and the methods they used, and the mind-boggling fact that, somehow, the universe exists and against all odds, life came to be on this wondrous planet we call home.
Really Short History of Nearly Everything: http://bit.ly/2gNf577
-Amazon
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