📚 A Short History of Nearly Everything

This is an accessible and captivating book about the history of modern science. With clear, humorous, and engaging prose, the author chronicles a multitude of fascinating and intriguing stories from the Big Bang to the development of human civilization. Wonder and awe fill the pages, and the vivid details of the natural world compose the book, helping readers understand the infinite mysteries of the universe and grasp the development of all things. The book traces the great and wondrous moments in the history of science, citing the latest historical scientific materials discovered in recent years. Almost every event described by the author is bizarre and astonishing: the universe originated from a singularity visible only under a microscope; global warming may make North America and northern Europe even colder; the eruption of the Tambora volcano on Sumbawa Island, Indonesia in 1815 caused a tsunami that claimed the lives of 100,000 people; Yellowstone National Park in the United States is "the world's largest active volcano"... And the scientists who are obsessed with science are also eccentric: Darwin actually played the piano for earthworms; Newton stuck a large darning needle into his eye socket just to see what would happen; Franklin flew a kite in a thunderstorm despite the danger to his life; Cavendish experimented with electric shock intensity on himself to the point of losing consciousness; and the Swedish paleontologist Jarvik, who discovered the first fossils of land-dwelling animals, the Osteostraci, miscounted the number of fingers and toes and hid the fossils for 48 years, preventing others from seeing them... While telling the miracles and achievements of science, the book is also imbued with a strong sense of humanistic care and concern for suffering. From the perspective of the history of scientific development, the book provides an extremely accurate interpretation of the age-old proposition: "Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?" After reading this book, everyone will have a new understanding of life, of human existence, and of the world we live in. The father of a young American reader said that after reading *A Short History of Nearly Everything*, he no longer feared death... The author believes that this is the highest praise a book can receive. After being published in the United States in May 2003, the book remained at the top of the *New York Times* and *The Times* bestseller lists for dozens of weeks, and was among Amazon's top ten best-selling books of 2003, and it won the top spot in the annual science book rankings. In early 2004, it was selected by the American journal *Science* as one of the best science books of 2003. In June 2004, it also won the Aventis Prize, the world's most prestigious popular science book award presented by the Royal Society of the United Kingdom.