A funny thing about the Internet, and standard delivery of the New York Times Book Review, is that we get it at the library almost a week early, and you CAN'T get these reviews on the site or (obviously) today if you are subscribing at home.
I'm interested in this Bill Bryson book. Bryson writes travel books but got an idea to write -- A Short History Of Nearly Everything. I was skeptical when I first saw this title, because I figured the hisotry would be (to put it mildly) Eurocentric...but thankfully the book is NOT about history, actually, but about the history of THINGS-- the pure sciences.
Bryson got the idea when, on a plane flight, he looked down and realized "that I didn't know the first thing about the only planet that I was ever going to live on." [and, to continue with Ed Regis's book review text...] He didn't know, for example, why the ocean was salty but inland lakes weren't. He didn't know how much the earth weighed, or how it was possible to tell. What was a protein? How big was an atom? When and how did the universe start?...
...so what caused it? he asks. Something: "a 'false vacuum' or a 'scalar field' or 'vacuum energy' -- some quality or thing, at any rate, that introduced a measure of instability into the nothingness that was."
Well, I guess so. Still, in all fairness early cosmology theories are a bunch of speculations that even in the 21st century bear awkward resemblances to ancient tribal creation myths.
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I guess Regis has a point. I have been pondering these first one million trillion trillion trillionths of a second of existence a lil lately. I find it insteresting...like what was around 5 seconds before that? Or A trillion trillion trillion years before that? ...and NO, it's NOT stuff I ponder just cuz I have a crush on Joao Magueijo! Please, give me credit! Besides my biggest crush is still Vaj, the loveliest lambent lass...LAMBENT, I say!
I'm interested in this Bill Bryson book. Bryson writes travel books but got an idea to write -- A Short History Of Nearly Everything. I was skeptical when I first saw this title, because I figured the hisotry would be (to put it mildly) Eurocentric...but thankfully the book is NOT about history, actually, but about the history of THINGS-- the pure sciences.
Bryson got the idea when, on a plane flight, he looked down and realized "that I didn't know the first thing about the only planet that I was ever going to live on." [and, to continue with Ed Regis's book review text...] He didn't know, for example, why the ocean was salty but inland lakes weren't. He didn't know how much the earth weighed, or how it was possible to tell. What was a protein? How big was an atom? When and how did the universe start?...
...so what caused it? he asks. Something: "a 'false vacuum' or a 'scalar field' or 'vacuum energy' -- some quality or thing, at any rate, that introduced a measure of instability into the nothingness that was."
Well, I guess so. Still, in all fairness early cosmology theories are a bunch of speculations that even in the 21st century bear awkward resemblances to ancient tribal creation myths.
-------------------------------------------------
I guess Regis has a point. I have been pondering these first one million trillion trillion trillionths of a second of existence a lil lately. I find it insteresting...like what was around 5 seconds before that? Or A trillion trillion trillion years before that? ...and NO, it's NOT stuff I ponder just cuz I have a crush on Joao Magueijo! Please, give me credit! Besides my biggest crush is still Vaj, the loveliest lambent lass...LAMBENT, I say!
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
fil:
I haven't been able to find a comprehensive book review database online anywhere. Maybe there aren't enough people passionate about books. Or maybe Amazon.com does it for us. I want an IMDB for books, goddamnit.
joscelyne:
the Supah Cam is on...but I'm about to get food so iono how long it'll be on. I look like a monster when I eat!
