All of science in a nutshell

Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything is without doubt the best general science book I've ever read. Since buying it two weeks ago, the 687-page book (including 113 pages of notes and index) has been my constant travelling companion to and from work; today I finished it, and instantly found I was suffering from withdrawal symptoms. So I dived straight into New Scientist's website for more science writing that I can easily assimilate.

ASHONE works for me because the author is not a scientist - merely an intelligent and curious person who took on the monumental task of diving into the worlds of subatomic physics, cosmology, evolutionary biology and earth sciences, linking them all together and presenting in simple language the state of mankind's knowledge about life, the universe and everything.

I've been discussing the book with everyone I've met these past two weeks, insisting that every sentient human being on this planet should read the book from cover to cover. In particular those without science degrees. And certainly every young person before they set off to university.

The book tells us what science knows about the universe, the atom and life - how it got to know what it knows (ASHONE is also an excellent history of science) and - for me most important - is what science doesn't know or can't yet explain. One area of research that the book fails to cover totally is neuroscience - how the brain works, the mind and consciousness. The human brain, after all, is the most complex thing known to Man.

We learn just how precarious life is, and what a billion-times-billion to one chance it is that you and I are here, and conscious, and able to grasp the wonder and enormity of it all. Hydrogen, we are told, converts one seven thousandth of its mass into energy as it turns into helium inside stars. "Lower that value to one six thousandth, and no transformation could take place - the universe would consist of hydrogen and nothing else. Raise it to one eight thousandth, and all the hydrogen in the universe would long since have been exhausted." Then there are other miracles - gravity being neither too strong, nor too weak, the Earth being the right distance from the sun, water freezing from the top down, an atmosphere that shields us from deadly cosmic radiation - without which we would simply not be.

"[F]or you to be here now, trillions of drifting atoms had somehow to assemble in an intricate and curiously obliging manner to create you... Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years... every one of your forebears on both sides have been attractive enough to reproduce, and sufficiently blessed by fate and circumstance to live long enough to do so. Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, drowned, starved, stuck fast, untimely wounded or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result - eventually... in you."

Bryson's portrayal of the great thought-leaders who have brought scientific knowledge to where it is today is generally one of single-minded eccentrics, working away obsessively for decades to prove a notion to their peers. Though he doesn't mention it, RRBI and Asperger's Syndrome (even high-functioning autism) seems to have been present in most of mankind's greatest scientists.

Here's a lovely quote, one that should fill us all with the optimism of life...

"[Atoms] are fantastically durable. Because they are so long-lived, atoms really get around. Every atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you. We are each so atomically numerous and so vigorously recycled at death that a significant number of atoms - up to a billion for each of us, it has been suggested - probably once belonged to Shakespeare. A billion more each came from Buddha and Genghis Khan and Beethoven, and any other historical figure you care to name. (The personages have to be historical, apparently, as it takes the atoms some decades to become thoroughly redistributed...)

So we are all reincarnations - though short-lived ones. When we die, our atoms will disassemble and move off to find new uses elsewhere - as part of a leaf, or other human being or drop of dew. Atoms themselves, however, go on practically for ever."

And given we know very little about the inner workings of atoms (150 known sub-atomic particles, 100 more believed to exist, we are told), what's stopping atoms from being carriers of consciousness or storehouses of memory, or indeed, of will?

Memory - consider this:

"Brain cells last as long as you do. You are issued with a hundred billion or so at birth and that is all you're going to get. It has been estimated that you lose 500 of them an hour, so if you have any serious thinking to do, there isn't a moment to waste. The good news is that individual components of your brain cells are constantly renewed ... no part of them is likely to be more than a month old. Indeed, it has been suggested that no part of us, not so much as a stray molecule, was part of us nine years ago."

So - if this is the case - where do memories from before nine years ago reside? Literally mind-blowing information if you ponder this for a while!

As we learn more about ourselves and our place in an expanding universe, we will learn about those shared spiritual feelings that bond humans to their history, those atavistic resurgences that link us to where we are from, and help indicate where we are going.

UPDATE: I've started re-reading it. Going over the text a second time, pencil in hand, helps cement notions, names and sequences of events. This book is too significant to skim-read.