It’s not easy to tell the history of the universe, but somehow, Billy Bryson does so in an entertaining and informative style in the new special illustrated edition of A Short History of Nearly Everything. Bryson is not a scientist, but rather a curious denizen who realized several years ago that there was a lot to the universe he simply didn’t know, and set out to rectify that situation. The result of his labors is a story that not only tells us what we know but how we know it, from the first experiments to find out how much the earth weighs to today’s ongoing efforts in trying to explain the universe’s origins itself. Science is not an answer, Bryson shows us, but a neverending process of discovery. Peppered throughout the book are often humorous and interesting anecdotes about the men and women who have contributed to our knowledge of our ultimate origins, whose intellects sometimes were only outrivaled by their lack of civility.
