Reply To: Redshirt Book Club – A Short History of Nearly Everything
I’m bringing this shiz up a notch! Here goes the discussion/my view that I wrote while at work:
This part of the book kept my attention the way a textbook never could. I laughed (though I never cried). There’s nothing that can keep my attention more than some hilarious wording and fun, interesting facts. In the latter chapters of this reading section (part II of the book), Bill Bryson included personal facts about each individual in question. Sometimes these facts blew away the notions of human perfection that have been fed to me in school classrooms. These great scientists/inventors/discoverers are just as quirky (if not more) than me! I’m “perfectly normal” in comparison.
Bill Bryson also portrays these people as much more down-to-earth than I’ve ever thought of them. Not everyone who has changed the world lived in the lap of luxury; they fall into the same fates as some of the rest of us. Depression, poverty and failed relationships aren’t excluded from their lives.
While reading I jotted down some of my favorite quotes. Here we go with those:
- “So I grew up convinced that science was supremely dull, but suspecting that it needn’t be, and not really thinking about it at all if I could help it”
This is really a quote that struck me right away, as I felt the same way through the end of my K-12 education. I avoided taking science classes in high school as much as I possibly could. I stopped at the minimum required classes (which I think was either 2 or 3 semester long classes). Though, I’m glad for my college science classes, as they brought my love of science.
- “Tune your television to any channel that doesn’t receive, and about 1 percent of the dancing static you see is accounted for by this ancient remnant of the Big Bang. The next time you complain that there is nothing on, remember you can always watch the birth of the universe.”
The above quote simply made me happy. Simple pleasures.
The following are about Sr. Isaac Newton and show how eccentric of a man he was. I never thought of him this way before, nor have I heard anything like this about him!
- “At least half his working life was given over to alchemy and wayward religious pursuits. These were not mere dabblings, but wholehearted devotions.”
- ” ‘Sr Isaac replied immediately that it would be an [ellipse]. The doctor, struck with joy & amazement, asked him how he knew it. ‘Why,’ saith he, ‘I have calculated,’ whereupon the Dr Halley asked him for his calculation without farther delay, Sr Isaac looked among his papers but could not find it.’ This was astounding – like someone saying he had found the cure for cancer but couldn’t remember where he put the formula.”
I also loved the descriptions of Cavendish, from being described as having “shyness to a ‘degree bordering on disease’.” I feel that even this description of Cavendish is very conservative, given his reactions in social situations such as shown in the following quotation: “…it was always made clear to the other guests that Cavendish was on no account to be approached or even looked at. …If their remarks were scientifically worthy they might receive a mumbled reply, but more often they would hear a peeved squeak (his voice appears to have been high pitched) and turn to find an actual vacancy and the sight of Cavendish fleeing for a more peaceful corner.”
Another favorite quote and concept. It’s just so amazing! (Emphasis added):
- “At the elemental level gravity is extraordinarily unrobust. Each time you pick up a book from the table or a dime from the floor you effortlessly overcome the combined gravitational exertion of an entire planet.”
Something that made me laugh and facepalm all the same time:
- “Almost inevitably, he became the leading authority on coprolites – fossilized feces – and had a table made entirely out of his collection of specimens.”
This next quote means a lot to me as a Christian, as this is exactly how I think of creation:
- “Even Reverend Buckland, as pious a soul as the nineteenth century produced, noted that nowhere did the bible suggest that God made Haven and Earth on the first day, but merely ‘in the beginning.’ That beginning, he reasoned, may have lasted ‘millions upon millions of years’.”
And one last one for those of us getting ready for the zombie apocalypse:
- “He assembled fifty buckets of human urine, which he kept for months in his cellar.” – Quote about Hennig Brand