This book written by the travel writer who brought us adventures from around the world examines our own world as a whole, its surroundings and how it functions. Unlike the textbooks with colourful diagrams that most of us will have read at some point or other during school, he weaves a colourful, interesting and humourous picture of the world which would not exist as we know it if we changed it just a little, tiny, teeny bit. In other words, Bryson makes some of the most amazing and complicated findings in modern science understandable for those of us who can't be bothered reading Einstein's complicated theorems or the like.
The wealth of information in this book is simply astounding, I found that many facts I knew from taking science in high school, I did not know about the discovery of. Bryson brings up both the famous and the not-so-famous names as he explores each sector of discovery. He shows not only this expanse of information but also an obvious interest in what he is writing about and a dedication to understanding what many physicists would not be able to explain to you in normal English.
This is the third time I've read this book in about as many years, it never gets old and I always find myself remembering something I had previously forgotten. Unlike some of its explaining-science counterparts (including Zukav's The Dancing Wu Li Masters and Hawking's A Brief History of Time), it brings some humour into both science and the scientists who have uncovered some of the greatest mysteries. It also doesn't just cover physics, but a wide range of disciplines and the names which govern their discoveries, as well as the names which are never included despite their great discoveries.
Highly recommended to all and especially those of us who are geeks like myself and thrive off the sheer amount on knowledge in this book.
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