Krishna
A very different (for Bryson) book about science.
The man who invented Bayes theorem was Reverend Thomas (who else?) Bayes. He lived from about 1701 to 1761. It is celebrated today for its help with probability distributions etc. But then it was considered a mathematical curiosity but useless. Thomas Bayes was also a hopeless preacher (His chosen profession!) but a brilliant mathematician. Even he thought little of it and even did not want to publish it. It was sent to Royal Society of London by a friend only two years after his death!
Today, with powerful computers, it has application in weather modelling, carbon dating, stock market analysis and many more fields.
The Royal Society was founded in 1660. It invented modern science by inventing scientific publishing, peer review, English as the language (not Latin), and clarity of knowledge in clear, simple sentences. One of the founding members demonstrated sparkling wine or champagne making.
Sure there were cuckoo papers (or what we would consider cuckoo today) like “there was a report of a hole in Iceland, in which, if you threw a rock, it would throw it right back” or of similar ilk.
The casual cruelty to animals ‘to learn from’ is shocking too.
Also Bill explains why the advance of science threatened the medieval Christian theology by insisting that (a la Star Trek) laws of physics were the same everywhere.
He swerves into the area of psychology and philosophy, which is unusual for me to read in a Bill Bryson book. He talks about what the realization that the space is constant, physical laws exist everywhere does to the concept not just religion (‘No separation of earth and other planets, no spiritual dimensioned space, no heaven you can pinpoint in a galactical map) and also to the concept of self. (The psychological trauma it may cause). Not very Bryson and I do not think that it is as interesting as the other topics he takes up.
You know I am in awe of his writing, as evinced by my earlier reviews of his books, especially, A Short History of Nearly Everything or The Mother Tongue among others. But even the great pen of Bryson sinks into historical mire here, from which it does not release itself. The details given, while perhaps of interest to serious students of the subject matters, can be plodding reading for a layman such as myself. I am not asking for lightheartedness or humour at all times. Just an interesting subject matter!
OK, the story goes into multiple, and to me, pointless discussions but comes back to track when Bryson turns his attention to extra terrestrial life and the possibility of it. The book is fascinating in the speculation of alternate theories of life outside our Solar System.
For instance, how is the unusually large number of 10 to the power of 40 determine both the disparity in the gravitational and electromagnetic force in a hydrogen atom – the simplest of atoms – and also the age of the universe in its fundamental unit? Paul Dirac did not believe that it was a coincidence.
He talks of why the scientific community is swinging between the possibility of extraterrestrial life and ‘we are alone’ hypothesis – with, of course, due scientific reasons.
Darwin’s theory explains the complexity of life as we know it but how did life really get started? (‘Whatever the first form of life is, as nobody knows’ as Bryson charmingly puts it across!) Darwin himself speculated on a spontaneous evolution over billions of years from a primordial soup of non organic elements but no one has been able to successfully reproduce it – getting to amino acids seems easy but not beyond.
He describes one version of multiverse and how this theory came about, poetically comparing our universe (yes universe) to bubbles in a champagne bottle. Fascinating stuff.
Also fascinating is how mathematics plays a pivotal role in areas such as space exploration.
He goes into (for me) uninteresting topics again. I have never had to skip portions of a Bryson book ever, and in this one, I was forced to! But the parts that appeal are totally fascinating. As his concept of space and time in Newton’s time vs Einstein’s time and what does it mean when they say that time flows differently based on speed of relative motion and even gravity. Brilliant explanations; what else do we expect from Bryson? The discussion where the time and space freeze in the vicinity of a black hole is fascinating.
The book is fascinating in parts but feels heavy and dreary to me in parts too.
Let us say a 5/10
— Krishna