William Tague
Class Earth Science Even
Bryson, Bill. A Short History of Nearly Everything. N.p.: Broadway, 2003. Print
I read chapter 1: How To Build A Universe out of Bill Bryson's, A Short History of Nearly Everything. This chapter was quite fun. It focused on trying to sum up the theory of the big bang and help you understand how infinitely large and unique the universe is. In the first part of the chapter Mr.Bryson tries to describe the Big Bang. He starts by telling us how we would need to gather everything in the entire universe and squeeze it into one spot with no dimension. Something that is infinitely small called a singularity, to re-create it. He also tells us how the only space that exists is the space created when the singularity expands. That, “...there is no space, no darkness. The singularity has no “around” around it.(10)” Then the singularity expands at such a rate that in less than a minute the universe expands to a million billion miles across. It was so fast and hot that it was was able to create the elements as we know them, truly an incomprehensibly large explosion. In fact it was so large that the universe is expanding to this day and actually has left radiation from it’s explosion roughly 13.7 billion years ago. This radiation, which some scientists struggled to find for a long time, was actually accidentally discovered by two scientist trying to work on a communications antenna in Bell Labs. These scientists, unlike a group at Princeton, were not looking for the noise but trying to perform experiments with the antenna. However, when they were trying to run the tests on the antenna they picked up a distant, steady, hiss which no matter what they did, they couldn't get rid of. Therefore these scientists called Professor Dicke at Princeton and described their problem to him. He of course, was trying to find this noise himself and realized at once what this was, thus discovering the radiation from the Big Bang. Bill Bryson also talks about how perfectly created the universe is. With any more gravity the universe may stop expanding and recondense into a singularity once more. With any less, planets would infinitely spread apart until gravity would have no effect on any of them. Another example of how lucky we are, is the release of energy in converting hydrogen to helium. If it were .001% less no transformations of elements would occur and the universe would all be hydrogen. If it were .001% higher, hydrogen would have been used up and there would no more in the universe.
I choose this chapter from A Short History of Nearly Everything because it is incredibly interesting and super informative. It manages to give you a better perspective on the universe and how big it is, how tiny you are, and how lucky you are to be here. May it be luck or exact science, but the universe is set out in a way in which it really couldn't be any different. It also is a really fun crash course on how our universe was created.
Bill Bryson is a great writer. He writes in a way that makes you feel like he is talking to you rather than writing. The book does assume you know nothing about science, so if you are a more informed reader this chapter may be less interesting to you. It is also incredibly entertaining as it speaks to you in a personal manner, makes jokes, gets sidetracked and tells small stories, something most books rarely are able to accomplish.
Will did a fabulous job summarizing this chapter of A Short History Of Nearly Everything. After reading his description, I genuinely want to read the book for a multitude of reasons. First of all, he praises the content as interesting and informative. The Big Bang is an extremely complicated and fascinating field in which I have little to no knowledge of, aside from the video we watched in class last Friday, but a strong interest nonetheless. Because it's so broad and confusing, it's difficult for an ammeter astronomer to know where to begin, but after reading Will's description of this book, he seems to have found me a good starting point. His account of the author's voice also appealed to me. Nonfiction books have a reputation either boring or frustrating the reader; many I have skimmed simply bombarded me with intangible facts and scientific jargon. But one that speaks to the reader like a person rather than a robot, inserting jokes and telling short stories, is a kind of book I would want to read. Will also summarized the plot in a way that gives details and information yet is able to remain simple and easy to read; I wasn't lost or puzzled once.
ReplyDeleteThe facts Will found in the chapter are simply astounding. I learned that Will is so right when he says we're lucky to be here; our mere existence is totally dependent on the perfect balance of countless factors. For example, if the amount of energy converting hydrogen to helium had been but a thousandth of a percent different than it was, their would either be no hydrogen or no elements but hydrogen in the universe. I also learned that a lot of what has been discovered about the solar system has been an accident, such as the radiation that still exists even 14 billion years after the Big Bang.
If anything, the one thing he could have done better was talk about the book as a whole, not just the one chapter. The title, A Short History of Nearly Everything, could mean it's about, well, nearly everything. I usually seek out a book for its entirely, not just one chapter, so although the first chapter seems extremely enthralling, I'm not sure whether the rest of the book will appeal to me, depending on its content.
But overall, this current event report was one of the most interesting I've read in a while, and definitely plan on checking out this book. Thanks, Will, and great job with this report!
Wow thanks Ellie, thats much appreciated :)
DeleteThanks Ellie for your very thoughtful response to Will's report! To be fair, Will was only asked to read one chapter of the book for a current event report, so he is probably not able to speak to the book as whole. However, as a teacher with a passion for this topic, I hope Will is interested enough to continue reading this book! Might make a great beach read in the summer! (Do normal people read science books in the spare time, on the beach, as I do? I'm not sure.)
DeleteEven if you don't read the book in its entirety, it seems you got a lot out of reading the first chapter. How we discovered cosmic background radiation is a fascinating story, and one I wish we had time to explore in class. But we were pressed for time and I had only one day to spend on the "Big Bang." So I am really glad at least one student got to learn a bit more on the subject by reading this chapter.
I hope others who are curious about the origins of the universe will continue to look for answers on this deep topic!