A Short History of Nearly Everything , Bill Bryson

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, Black Swan, 2004.

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If you sometimes wonder whether you might have been a scientist, then try reading A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. You should come to the conclusion that this might have been possible. Bill Bryson reveals that scientists are just as human as everyone else. Some are geniuses, but others are as average as the next person. 

For example, he introduces Lord Rutherford. He wasn't a talented experimentalist or mathematician. What he had was an eye for the main chance, and a capacity for hard and boring work (watching alpha particle scintillations can pale after a few hours). You might be left thinking, maybe I can win the Nobel prize by being diligent, taking chances, and knowing the right people? Even if you don't, on Bill Bryson's evidence, you're likely to meet some interesting characters working in the lab. 

A Short History of Nearly Everything is at its best when conveying the eccentricities of the scientists involved in trying to understand "nearly everything". Meet the chemist who is so shy that he would only "talk" to his housekeeper through written notes; and, on the dark side, meet the anatomist who kept the spine of a competitor pickled in a jar. Also, don't miss the cosmologist who threatened to shoot his nearest collaborator if he ever ventured onto campus.

Bill Bryson excels at asking the big questions, and provides some of the answers (in plain language). He is honest enough to admit he gave up on string theory, and makes us laugh when he explains how and why. But he is very good and sketching how scientists found answers to fundamental questions like: How old is the Earth? What does it weigh? How did the Universe begin? What's a quark? 

Bill Bryson chews on quandaries like an inquisitive child. He finds answers from the popular science books of leading scientists, and summarises them for us. So the knowledge is second hand - you could read the scientists that have worked directly on these questions. But Bryson has the advantage of writing with a style and humour that few moonlighting scientists can match. Also, remarkably, you do feel he touches on nearly everything across the whole range of science. Scientists tend to stick to their specialities, even in popular writings, and it is fun to experience a writer with the chutzpah of Bryson who is prepared to take on nearly everything.

I have specialist degrees in the physical sciences and could not see significant errors in A Short History of Nearly Everything. Some topics deserved more coverage and care (for instance, explaining Newton's three laws of motion in one parenthetic sentence seemed rather short-shrift.) But these are minor quibbles for a book that was aiming for broad brush strokes on a large canvas. The accuracy Bill Bryson exhibits shows the care taken in his three year excursion into popular science writing. It helped that he read the right books and talked to the right people, to which he guides you in the excellent notes & bibliography. 

He pulls short of giving detailed answers to technical questions like how do you explicitly calculate the earth's circumference? Such answers would necessitate introducing some mathematics, which Bryson avoids completely. But he tells you, for example, the trials and tribulations that early surveyors went through to get the measurements necessary to calculate such things. Most readers will be satisfied with being told that once you have these measurements a bit of trigonometry will produce the final answer. For others, Bill Bryson provides copious references.

• A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson is a worthy winner of the top prize for popular science writing.