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A Short History Of Nearly Everything

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iISBN: 0767908171

This book is a layman introduction to the natural sciences. It describes the origins of the universe and life through the fields of geology, astronomy, paleontology, chemistry, physics, and biology. What makes it a riveting read is that it doesn’t simply relay the facts to you—it tells you the stories, personalities, and human drama behind the discoveries. It also mentions the incorrect but humorous hypotheses that were widely accepted for long stretches of time.

America, Buffon wrote in his vast and much-esteemed Histoire Naturelle, was a land where the water was stagnant, the soil unproductive, and the animals without size or vigor, their constitutions weakened by the “noxious vapors” that rose from its rotting swamps and sunless forests. In such an environment even the native Indians lacked virility. “They have no beard or body hair,” Buffon sagely confided, “and no ardor for the female.” Their reproductive organs were “small and feeble.”

[…]

When tusks were discovered, they were forced into the animal’s head in any number of inventive ways. One restorer screwed the tusks in upside down, like the fangs of a saber-toothed cat, which gave it a satisfyingly aggressive aspect.

Another anecdote describes how some American paleontologists, confused at the fossils they were unearthing, reconstructed a fantastical animal on par with the mermaid or centaur.

Here are some additional highlights:

Every atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you.

[…]

When you sit in a chair, you are not actually sitting there, but levitating above it at a height of one angstrom (a hundred millionth of a centimeter), your electrons and its electrons implacably opposed to any closer intimacy.

[…]

…we live in a universe whose age we can’t quite compute, surrounded by stars whose distances we don’t altogether know, filled with matter we can’t identify, operating in conformance with physical laws whose properties we don’t truly understand.

[…]

In 1994, thirty-four thousand ice hockey gloves were swept overboard from a Korean cargo ship during a storm in the Pacific. The gloves washed up all over, from Vancouver to Vietnam, helping oceanographers to trace currents more accurately than they ever had before.

[…]

…there could be as many as thirty million species of animals living in the sea, most still undiscovered.

[…]

…there are three stages in scientific discovery: first, people deny that it is true; then they deny that it is important; finally they credit the wrong person.

[…]

For the next twenty years, even while on vacation, [Milankovitch] worked ceaselessly with pencil and slide rule computing the tables of his cycles— work that now could be completed in a day or two with a computer.

[…]

Some of these species existed for well over a million years, others for a more modest few hundred thousand, but it is worth bearing in mind that even the least successful had histories many times longer than we have yet achieved.

My main complaint with the book was that it was too short. A tackling of the entire world’s history should mean a 1000-page offering at the minimum, but instead we get only 478 pages. At the same time I understand this was intended for the average man, so my grievance comes mostly from already knowing a good chunk of the information presented.

Short History made it clear how much of the universe and our Earth that we simply don’t know, may never come to know, and how things we think we know today will be proven wrong in the future well after our deaths. When opening one box that you think leads to the truth, another box is present, and so it goes, a slow march to scientific knowledge and understanding. In 5000 years, I can only imagine the progress that will have been made at understanding our world, where future humans look back at us as unfortunate beings who lived in ignorance of the truth. That said, I highly recommend this book for those not well-versed in scientific history to understand just a bit of how we came to be.

Read More: “A Short History Of Nearly Everything” on Amazon

34 thoughts on “A Short History Of Nearly Everything”

  1. “Short History made it clear how much of the universe and our Earth that we simply don’t know, may never come to know, and how things we think we know today will be proven wrong in the future well after our deaths. When opening one box that you think leads to the truth, another box is present, and so it goes on, a slow march to scientific knowledge. In 5000 years, I can only imagine the progress that will have been made to understanding our world, where future humans look back at us as unfortunate humans who lived in ignorance of the truth.”
    Perfect. This tincture from your last paragraph is the distillation of wisdom. Most men spend decades in blissful ignorance and never appreciate this eternal and humbling truth. A fleck of foam can never hope to comprehend the ocean.
    For this observation alone, man, it sounds like the book was worth reading.

    1. When we read Pliny’s “Historia Naturalis” (the earliest known encyclopedia) today, we marvel at the ignorance of man 2000 years ago. But they did the best they could with the tools and technology that they had at the time.
      No doubt our remote ancestors will laugh at our plodding ignorance.

  2. energy cannot be created or destroyed but we have an energy crisis…. laughable isn’t it… more like an ignorance crisis…. and or a greed crisis of energy companies trying to make more money…

    1. I don’t get this comment. I mean, sure you can argue the energy companies are screwing people, but that has very little to do with the law of conservation of energy. If you have a brilliant idea of how to “recycle” the energy, I’m sure people would be very keen to hear it.

      1. A characterstic of psudeo-science is its reliance on verbal argument. At bottom, the reasoning behind crackpot science usually turns out to be plays on words.

      2. Energy companies drill miles into the ocean, haul the oil half way around the world, refine it, and deliver it to your corner station for a profit of 3-5 cents a gallon. Your response is to call them greedy. The gubbmit takes 50 cents per gallon on average and doesn’t do a damn thing to put gas in your tank. You think someone needs to be bribed for the legislature to continue this practice?

  3. Waiting to see how Jezebel finds science on RoK sexist , they watch this site like a hawk.

    1. STOP FEEDING THE TROLLS.
      For fuck’s sake people, fucking stop it! They love it when you talk about them when they’re not around! They’re like rats, the more you feed them, the more they reproduce! I will rejoice the day that one of them posts something obviously inflammatory and it gets 32 downvotes and not a single reply.

      1. Spot on Clarence. Mentioning Jizzbelch is counterproductive. (yes, I know I just did it).

  4. Roosh is an ugly misogynist with massive mommy issues. He created ROK in October 2012 because he has no friends. Currently he is traveling the world to have bad sex with poor girls who want to use him for an American greencard. His little penis is so ineffective at satisfying women that he has had to master the art of cunnilingus. It is absolutely certain that he will die alone in a basement alongside his massive porn collection. Sadly, his right hand is irreversibly deforming into a claw shape from excessive masturbation, causing him sharp pains when he types up one of his offensive rants. You can visit his sexist blog at RooshV.com
    most accurate signature ever

  5. Or perhaps thousands of years from now people living in hovels amongst the ruins of our civilisation will wonder how on Earth we achieved it.
    The same way people must have felt living in the ruins of Rome, taking stones from the once mighty Coliseum to build a thatch-roofed hut. Not able to comprehend or even greatly concerned with how such a awesome structure came to be in the first place.

    1. When the Roman Empire “fell” a lot of Romans didn’t even notice. The eastern empire based in constantinople lasted 1000 more years give or take. Civilizations don’t really fall the inhabitants change, almost all of Europe was a fractured continuation of Roman civilization. Pope/emperor, king/governor , noble/ officer when the old dies something new arises . Makes me wonder what the American dark age will be like and whether or not it’s already started are we living under Romulus Augustus or Ordoacer? Enjoy the fall.

      2. Jared Diamond said that people sometimes ask what the easter islander felling the last tree on his island must have thought. The answer is that by that time, the trees had long since ceased to be of importance in their culture and economy.

  8. Right now I’m reading Bryson’s newest book One Summer. It’s really good so far (nearly done). He’s a great author and I’m surprised I haven’t read any of his other books. I’ll definitely be checking this one out soon.

    1. Reading it too (I just referred to it by subtitle “1927” above). Entertaining book. I’m amazed how all those aviators just said “fuck it” and flew to Europe like that. Thoroughly entertaining.

    2. Been a fan of Bill Bryson’s for many years now, first with his travel books – mixing insight with true humour. Now working my way through “One Summer…” myself; truly a stroke of wisdom, if not genius, to pinpoint this one pivotal year in the Union’s history.

  9. Good piece. I will check the book out. Got interested in history of science after reading “The Logical Leap” by David Harriman.

    1. I’m fairly obnoxious in my zeal to point out to every fellow Objectivist that they need to check out “The Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism” by Max Weber. It’s relatively short but mind-blowing, and I think Rand would have had assimilated his work if she had known about it. It completely changed my view on the role that Christianity played in the rise of Western civilization.

  10. Thanks Roosh. I’m going to check this out. Coincidentally I’m reading Bryson’s book “1927” right now. It’s excellent. It deals primarily with Charles Lindbergh but also everything going on in America that summer. Recommended.

  11. Nearly everything, yes. The time is coming when ancient archaeology – longer debunkable with discoveries like Gobekli Tepe in Turkey and the very recent digs at Gunung Padang in Indonesia – will prove we are far older than Western science currently understands and attempts to program the masses. That’s another red pill to keep people hooked on Bread and Circuses instead of developing our infinite spiritual and physical potential.
    “Monuments to Life: Graham Hancock (journalist/former writer for The Economist) and Robert Bauval (engineer/architect)”

    3. If the ancients were so fucking marvellous, how come thier civilisations fell?
      Here’s the thing. If Atlantis is discovered, if it turns out they really did have cthulhu energy crystals and healing machines, understanding those things is going to be every bit as mathematical, weenie, and difficult as modern science. I will guarrantee you that they will not work by wishing hard, by sitting in a circle and having good feelings

      1. If the ancients were so fucking marvelous, how come their civilisations fell?

        Maybe feminist ideologies took hold.

  13. Roosh this is totally off-topic but please have a write up on the whole “Hunter Moore” revenge porn debacle going on right now. these stupid bitches take photos of their pussy and send it to their “boyfriends 4 life” and act surprised when the boy breaks up or the one night stander puts the picks up on a revenge porn site. These girls have no accountability. My mates and I argued about this for days on end, and they said that the girls had no fault in this :/
    Im like are u fucking kidding me. those bitches took photos of their pussy lips spread open, it ain’t fucking classy.

  14. I suggest reading “The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality” Brian Greene for a great intro to the universe and physics.

  15. “My main complaint with the book was that it was too short. A tackling of the entire world’s history should mean a 1000-page offering at the minimum, but instead we get only 478 pages. ”
    Hell I prefer things to be much shorter, especially if it’s an introduction / overview of something. If after reading this book there is an area I’d like to focus on I’ll get further books in the specific area.
    Otherwise, the shorter the better which is motivating me to purchase the book as I write this post. Thanks Roosh.

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