Here's a book recommendation

[jidujiao]

Bill Bryson wrote a book called "A Short History of Nearly Everything" last year. It's pretty good. If you want a survey of the physical sciences that's interesting and written for normal people (as opposed to academics or people who like to read textbooks for fun), check it out.

The descriptions of what has happened and would happen in the event of a comet striking the earth or an enormous volcano erupting are pretty vivid.

 

[Aeschylus]

A word of caution: Bill Bryson is not an expert in the area and in previous books he has written in subjects that he is not an expert in, he has merely propgated popular, but false myths about the subject.

 

[jidujiao]

Bill Bryson is not an expert in the area

This is true. It's not a textbook. He's just a normal guy who tried to survey the physical sciences in order to give a broad overview.

What false information has he propagated in other works, though?

 

[Aeschylus]

This is true. It's not a textbook. He's just a normal guy who tried to survey the physical sciences in order to give a broad overview.

What false information has he propagated in other works, though?

'The Mother Togue' by Bill Brysons is supposedly a very entertaining book about the history of the English language, but from a factual point of view it is almost worthless.

 

[Aeschylus]

I'd recommend books that are aimed at the layman but don't run away from a little bit of maths. For example alot of people find the concepts of time dilation and Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction interesting, but there's also alot of misunderstand about these concepts, which is a shame as it's possible to gain a reasonable undrestanding of these concepts with only basic maths and basic mechanical physics.

 

[Deamiter]

Physics in a Nutshell by Stephan Hawking is a great book (with lots of pictures) for the layman. Hawking's A Brief History of Time was an earlier book with more detail, a little math, and diagrams rather than pictures but CERTAINLY understandable for anyone with even a high school understanding of the physical sciences.

 

[HitchSlap]

Bill Bryson wrote a book called "A Short History of Nearly Everything" last year. It's pretty good. If you want a survey of the physical sciences that's interesting and written for normal people (as opposed to academics or people who like to read textbooks for fun), check it out.

The descriptions of what has happened and would happen in the event of a comet striking the earth or an enormous volcano erupting are pretty vivid.

Fantastic book! Read it several years back, good stuff.

 

[AV1611VET]

Bill Bryson wrote a book called "A Short History of Nearly Everything" last year.

Fantastic book! Read it several years back, good stuff.

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