A Short History of Nearly Everything By Bill Bryson free download

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As I sit here, in early 2003, I have before me several pages of manuscript bearing majestically encouraging and tactful notes from Ian Tattersal of the American Museum of Natural History pointing out, inter alia, that Perigueux is not a wineproducing region, that it is inventive but a touch unorthodox of me to italicize taxonomic divisions above the level of genus and species, that I have persistently misspelled Olorgesaille, a place that I recently visited, and so on in similar vein through two chapters of text covering his area of expertise, early humans.

Goodness knows how many other inky embarrassments may lurk in these pages yet, but it is thanks to Dr. Tattersall and all of those whom I am about to mention that there aren't many hundreds more. I cannot begin to thank adequately those who helped me in the preparation of this book. I am especially indebted to the following, who were uniformly generous and kindly and showed the most heroic reserves of patience in answering one simple, endlessly repeated question: "I'm sorry, but can you explain that again?"

In the United States: Ian Tattersall of the American Museum of Natural History in New York; John Thorstensen, Mary K. Hudson, and David Blanchflower of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire; Dr. William Abdu and Dr. Bryan Marsh of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire; Ray Anderson and Brian Witzke of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, Iowa city; Mike Voorhies of the University of Nebraska and Ashfall Fossil Beds State Park near Orchard, Nebraska; Chuck Offenburger of Buena Vista University, Storm Lake, Iowa; Ken Rancourt, director of research, Mount Washington Observatory, Gorham, New Hampshire; Paul Doss, geologist of Yellowstone National Park, and his wife, Heidi, also of the National Park; Frank Asara of the University of California at Berkeley; Oliver Payne and Lynn Addison of the National Geographic Society; James O. Farlow, IndianaPurdue University; Roger L. Larson, professor of marine geophysics, University of Rhode Island; Jeff Guinn of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram news

paper; Jerry Kasten of Dallas, Texas; and the staff of the Iowa Historical Society in Des Moines.

In England: David Caplin of Imperial College, London; Richard Fortey, Les Ellis, and Kathy Way of the Natural History Museum; Martin Raff of University College, London; Rosalind Harding of the Institute of Biological Anthropology in Oxford; Dr. Laurence Smaje, formerly of the Wellcome Institute; and Keith Blackmore of The Times.

In Australia: the Reverend Robert Evans of Hazelbrook, New South Wales; Alan Thorne and Victoria Bennett of the Australian National University in Canberra; Louise Burke and John Hawley of Canberra; Anne Milne of the Sydney Morning Herald; Ian Nowak, formerly of the Geological Society of Western Australia; Thomas H. Rich of Museum Victoria; Tim Flannery, director of the South Australian Museum in Adelaide; and the very helpful staff of the State Library of New South Wales in Sydney.

And elsewhere: Sue Superville, information center manager at the Museum of New Zealand in Wellington, and Dr. Emma Mbua, Dr. Koen Maes, and Jillani Ngalla of the Kenya National Museum in Nairobi.

David Bryson, Felicity Bryson, Dan McLean, Nick Southern, Patrick Gallagher, Larry Ashmead, and the staff of the peerless and ever-cheery Howe Library in Hanover, New Hampshire.

I am also deeply and variously indebted to Patrick Janson-Smith, Gerald Howard, Marianne Velmans, Alison Tulett, Larry Finlay, Steve Rubin, Jed Mattes, Carol Heaton, Charles Elliott,

Above all, and as always, my profoundest thanks to my dear wife, Cynthia.

CONTENTS

PART I LOST IN THE COSMOS
1 How to Build a Universe
2 Welcome to the Solar System
3 The Reverend Evans's Universe
PART II THE SIZE OF THE EARTH
4 The Measure of Things
5 The Stone-Breakers
6 Science Red in Tooth and Claw
7 Elemental Matters
PART III ANEW AGE DAWNS
8 Einstein's Universe
9 The Mighty Atom
10 Getting the Lead Out
11 Muster Mark's Quarks
12 The Earth Moves
PART IV DANGEROUS PLANET
13 Bang!
14 The Fire Below
15 Dangerous Beauty
PART V LIFE ITSELF
16 Lonely Planet
17 Into the Troposphere
18 The Bounding Main
19 The Rise of Life
20 Small World
21 Life Goes On
22 Good-bye to All That
23 The Richness of Being
24 Cells
25 Darwin's Singular Notion
26 The Stuff of Life
PART VI THE ROAD TO US
27 Ice Time
28 The Mysterious Biped
29 The Restless Ape
30 Good-bye
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX