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!!!!隆堋響頼紗秘慕禰厮宴和肝写偬堋響



re no longer around。 life on earth察you see察is not only brief but dismayingly tenuous。 it is a curious feature of our existence that we e from aplanet that is very good at promoting life but even better at extinguishing it。

the average species on earth lasts for only about four million years察so if you wish to bearound for billions of years察you must be as fickle as the atoms that made you。 you must beprepared to change everything about yourself´shape察size察color察species affiliationeverything´and to do so repeatedly。 thats much easier said than done察because the process ofchange is random。 to get from ;protoplasmal primordial atomic globule; as the gilbert andsullivan song put it to sentient upright modern human has required you to mutate new traitsover and over in a precisely timely manner for an exceedingly long while。 so at variousperiods over the last 3。8 billion years you have abhorred oxygen and then doted on it察grownfins and limbs and jaunty sails察laid eggs察flicked the air with a forked tongue察been sleekbeen furry察lived underground察lived in trees察been as big as a deer and as small as a mouseand a million things more。 the tiniest deviation from any of these evolutionary shifts察and youmight now be licking algae from cave walls or lolling walrus´like on some stony shore ordisgorging air through a blowhole in the top of your head before diving sixty feet for amouthful of delicious sandworms。

not only have you been lucky enough to be attached since time immemorial to a favoredevolutionary line察but you have also been extremely´make that miraculously´fortunate in yourpersonal ancestry。 consider the fact that for 3。8 billion years察a period of time older than theearths mountains and rivers and oceans察every one of your forebears on both sides has beenattractive enough to find a mate察healthy enough to reproduce察and sufficiently blessed by fateand circumstances to live long enough to do so。 not one of your pertinent ancestors wassquashed察devoured察drowned察starved察stranded察stuck fast察untimely wounded察or otherwisedeflected from its lifes quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the rightpartner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditarybinations that could result´eventually察astoundingly察and all too briefly´in you。

this is a book about how it happened´in particular how we went from there being nothing atall to there being something察and then how a little of that something turned into us察and alsosome of what happened in between and since。 thats a great deal to cover察of course察which iswhy the book is called a short history of nearly everything察even though it isnt really。 itcouldnt be。 but with luck by the time we finish it will feel as if it is。

my own starting point察for what its worth察was an illustrated science book that i had as aclassroom text when i was in fourth or fifth grade。 the book was a standard´issue 1950sschoolbookbattered察unloved察grimly hefty´but near the front it had an illustration that justcaptivated me此a cutaway diagram showing the earths interior as it would look if you cut intothe planet with a large knife and carefully withdrew a wedge representing about a quarter ofits bulk。

its hard to believe that there was ever a time when i had not seen such an illustrationbefore察but evidently i had not for i clearly remember being transfixed。 i suspect察in honestymy initial interest was based on a private image of streams of unsuspecting eastboundmotorists in the american plains states plunging over the edge of a sudden 4000´mile´highcliff running between central america and the north pole察but gradually my attention did turnin a more scholarly manner to the scientific import of the drawing and the realization that theearth consisted of discrete layers察ending in the center with a glowing sphere of iron andnickel察which was as hot as the surface of the sun察according to the caption察and i rememberthinking with real wonder此 how do they know that拭i didnt doubt the correctness of the information for an instant´i still tend to trust thepronouncements of scientists in the way i trust those of surgeons察plumbers察and otherpossessors of arcane and privileged information´but i couldnt for the life of me conceive how any human mind could work out what spaces thousands of miles below us察that no eye hadever seen and no x ray could penetrate察could look like and be made of。 to me that was just amiracle。 that has been my position with science ever since。

excited察i took the book home that night and opened it before dinner´an action that i expectprompted my mother to feel my forehead and ask if i was all right´and察starting with the firstpage察i read。

and heres the thing。 it wasnt exciting at all。 it wasnt actually altogether prehensible。

above all察it didnt answer any of the questions that the illustration stirred up in a normalinquiring mind此how did we end up with a sun in the middle of our planet拭and if it isburning away down there察why isnt the ground under our feet hot to the touch拭and why isntthe rest of the interior melting´or is it拭and when the core at last burns itself out察will some ofthe earth slump into the void察leaving a giant sinkhole on the surface拭and how do you knowthis拭how did you figure it out

but the author was strangely silent on such details´indeed察silent on everything butanticlines察synclines察axial faults察and the like。 it was as if he wanted to keep the good stuffsecret by making all of it soberly unfathomable。 as the years passed察i began to suspect thatthis was not altogether a private impulse。 there seemed to be a mystifying universalconspiracy among textbook authors to make certain the material they dealt with never strayedtoo near the realm of the mildly interesting and was always at least a longdistance phone callfrom the frankly interesting。

i now know that there is a happy abundance of science writers who pen the most lucid andthrilling prose´timothy ferris察richard fortey察and tim flannery are three that jump out froma single station of the alphabet and thats not even to mention the late but godlike richardfeynman´but sadly none of them wrote any textbook i ever used。 all mine were written bymen it was always men who held the interesting notion that everything became clear whenexpressed as a formula and the amusingly deluded belief that the children of america wouldappreciate having chapters end with a section of questions they could mull over in their owntime。 so i grew up convinced that science was supremely dull察but suspecting that it needntbe察and not really thinking about it at all if i could help it。 this察too察became my position for along time。

then much later´about four or five years ago´i was on a long flight across the pacificstaring idly out the window at moonlit ocean察when it occurred to me with a certainunfortable forcefulness that i didnt know the first thing about the only planet i was evergoing to live on。 i had no idea察for example察why the oceans were salty but the great lakeswerent。 didnt have the faintest idea。 i didnt know if the oceans were growing more saltywith time or less察and whether ocean salinity levels was something i should be concernedabout or not。 i am very pleased to tell you that until the late 1970s scientists didnt know theanswers to these questions either。 they just didnt talk about it very audibly。and ocean salinity of course represented only the merest sliver of my ignorance。 i didntknow what a proton was察or a protein察didnt know a quark from a quasar察didnt understandhow geologists could look at a layer of rock on a canyon wall and tell you how old it wasdidnt know anything really。 i became gripped by a quiet察unwonted urge to know a littleabout these matters and to understand how people figured them out。 that to me remained thegreatest of all amazements´how scientists work things out。 how does anybody know howmuch the earth weighs or how old its rocks are or what really is way down there in thecenter拭how can they know how and when the universe started and what it was like when itdid拭how do they know what goes on inside an atom拭and how察e to that´or perhapsabove all´can scientists so often seem to know nearly everything but then still cant predict anearthquake or even tell us whether we should take an umbrella with us to the races nextwednesday

so i decided that i would devote a portion of my life´three years察as it now turns out´toreading books and journals and finding saintly察patient experts prepared to answer a lot ofoutstandingly dumb questions。 the idea was to see if it isnt possible to understand andappreciate´marvel at察enjoy even´the wonder and acplishments of science at a level thatisnt too technical or demanding察but isnt entirely superficial either。

that was my idea and my hope察and that is what the book that follows is intended to be。

anyway察we have a great deal of ground to cover and much less than 650000 hours in whichto do it察so lets begin。





PART  I           LOST IN THE COSMOS

水顓/t鐚t紊
theyre all in the same plane。

theyre all going around in the same direction。 。 。 。 

its perfect察you know。  

its gorgeous。 

its almost uncanny。  

´astronome
卦指朕村 貧匯匈 和匯匈 指欺競何 0 0
隆堋響頼紗秘慕禰厮宴和肝写偬堋響
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