A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson- Review - Chapter 1

So you might have heard about the book "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson. This is a book you must read i mean YOU MUST READ before you die. This books explains every bit you have seen or heard or felt in your life. An exact ratio of history , science(of everything), humor and some sense of guidance equals this book. We can't review this book on the whole. Because I might miss out few points and it will be real boring reading such a big review of a science book. If you have a child or know a child in their early teens, gift them this book. You might create a scientist, you probably would ! So I want this book to reach as much as possible . So I am reviewing chapter by chapter. If one of the next gen kid reads this, I will be so happy. Please do pass it on.

So what exactly propels Bill to invest so much of  his time and resource to come up with this kind of book ?

See the above picture? One fine day Bill sees this picture on the front cover of his text book and he wonders "Wow! different layers inside the earth crust! But how do they know it?  We cant dig that deep into the earth, we cant put a pipe or send X-rays , but how did we know what was inside the earth and how did we know the different layers?". From that moment he considers science as a miracle!

We all would have the doubts like why ocean is salty while lakes and rivers are not ?  what is the difference between a proton and protein ? How do you know how much the earth weighs? How old is the rock? When did the universe started ? how it was like when it started?  The difference Bill and most of us is we all have these questions but Bill invested three years of his life in finding out the answers for these questions. Hence, the book. I won't bore you much. We will see only the first chapter today. The actual book is much more funnier and interesting than my blog posts. My only aim is to try and reach people and induce them to read the book. So please don't compare my posts with the greatest book of the humankind.

Chapter 1 -  HOW TO BUILD A UNIVERSE  

So how was the universe formed? So we agree that universe was formed, it came into existence only at a certain point of time right? So what was going till the universe was formed? It was literally nothing and we call it as "Singularity". (Roughly translated as there was no space, time , gravity or even if everything was there, there was no coordination between them. In science there are always two possibilities) .

So we coin the term "Bigbang theory" . The theory is that the universe started as a single point and it kept on expanding. See you can create the universe . Take a proton, divide it into a billion pieces. Take one piece and pack an ounce of matter on it. We are in the singularity (Where nothing exists). Now this ounce of matter on the billionth part of proton starts expanding. Wow ! You gave birth to universe.
Singularity has no past, it has no void space or darkness. Singularity is just nothing. So from nothing our universe begins !

So how much time it took to create our entire universe from nothing? Less than a second. Don't get me wrong. The universe is still expanding and will do so for a million more years. It is expanding for millions of years but it was formed in less than the time you would take to make a sandwich.

So how to we find the end of the universe? We can't ! In the year 1964 two guys were trying to use a large communication antenna in New Jersey but they heard a  noise in the antenna a hiss noise from everywhere in the sky which would disturb their experiment. The noise was the cosmic background radiation left over from the big bang. They are experiencing the microwaves originated from the Big bang !   This is the thing you see on the tv screen when there is no image or sound coming but only the static dance of some dots and hisss sound? Be quiet ! You are watching the birth of the universe!

The bigbang theory  isnt anything about the bang itself but about what happened after the bang! Look at the magic . At the exact  moment gravity forms at the exact proportion. A tinge higher the entire universe would have stumbled on itself or a tinge  lower, the universe would have nothing to hold itself together.  Few even say that the bigbang is happening every now and then but only our universe  had the exact miracle moments to support life .

But there is a hole in that bigbang concept. As there was only one big bang, the lighter gases might have formed (hydrogen , helium, etc) but from where the heavier particles like carbon, nitrogen and oxygen and other stuffs formed? A man found the answer to it. He said that we have coined the term big bang as a note of "sarcasm"
Who knows ? The scientists would do anything and everything for the fun of it.
See you on the next chapter .
With love,
Arvi