Quando Edwin Hubble olhou pelo seu telescópio na década de 1920, ficou chocado ao descobrir que quase todas as galáxias que conseguia ver através dele estavam a afastar-se umas das outras. Se essas galáxias tivessem viajado sempre, raciocinou ele, deviam ter estado, em algum momento, umas em cima das outras.
Essa descoberta transformou o debate sobre uma das questões mais fundamentais da existência humana: como começou o universo?
Cada sociedade tem histórias sobre a origem do cosmos e dos seus habitantes, mas agora, com a possibilidade de perscrutar o universo inicial e usar os conhecimentos adquiridos graças à arqueologia, à geologia, à biologia evolutiva e à cosmologia, estamos mais perto do que nunca de entender de onde veio tudo.
A Origem de (Quase) Tudo oferece uma história única do passado, presente e futuro do nosso universo, desde o início da vida na Terra à conquista do espaço.
Graham Lawton is a staff writer at New Scientist with a focus on life sciences, biomedicine, earth sciences and the environment. He has a first-class honours degree in biochemistry and an MSc with distinction in science communication, both from Imperial College London. He has worked at New Scientist since 2000 in various roles including features editor, opinion editor, deputy editor, executive editor and acting editor. He now writes features, opinion articles and a monthly column No Planet B.
His writing has also been published in The Times, The Sunday Times, The i and The Sun and he has made multiple appearances on national radio and television. In 2023, he won writer of the year at the Professional Publishers Association awards. In 2019 he was shortlisted for the British Journalism Awards science writer of the year, and been shortlisted numerous times by the Association of British Science Writers awards. He is the author of three books: The Origin of (Almost) Everything, This Book Could Save Your Life and Mustn’t Grumble: The surprising science of everyday ailments and why we’re always a bit ill.
Kısa ama öz bilgilerin yer aldığı, bol görselli, popüler bilim kitabı. Günümüzde sıklıkla kullanılan infografiklerle desteklenmiş güzel dataları var. Bunların yanı sıra okumayı kolaylaştıran akıcı bir anlatımı var. Kısacası beğendim ve tavsiye ederim. Özellikle çocuklarınıza mutlaka okutmalısınız. Zaten İş Bankası Kültür Yayınlarının yanlış seçim yapacağını çok düşünmüyordum.
The book itself glances at some very big scientific concepts, but I'd think someone new to the ideas could keep up easily enough. The historical narratives brought forward to answer the questions within are also brilliant. There's definitely something in this book for everyone.
Bilim ve doğa’daki buluşları, temel ve derin sorunlarla ilgili kitabın başlığında ifade edildiği gibi “neredeyse her şeyin kökeni” ile ilgili hikayeleri anlatan resimlerle, şekillerle renklendirilmiş eğlenceli bir keşif kitabı. Evren, gezegenimiz, yaşam, uygarlık, bilgi ve icatlar ana başlıklarında hazırlanmış. Çocukluğumuzun ansiklopedi karıştırdığımız günlerini anımsatan çok keyifli bir okuma oldu.
"Origin of almost everything" is a VAST exaggeration, the book barely touches the basics of our life and evolution (origin of universe, our planet, invetions, knowledge etc - and for some bizzare reason also a random thing like belly button fluff - I guess just to look it really covered almost everything). Well, it's understandable, the real thing would take up at least twenty volumes of 1000 pages. But the title gave me quite high expectations that weren't met. Apart from that I still enjoyed it and if you looking for introduction to popular science about life and knowledge, it is definitely an interesting and easy read.
Definitely 5/5 stars. This book is a great start for science nerds whom want to dive deeper into the ocean of science, it discusses “almost” everything and gives interesting information about all the discussed matters. What I loved about it the most was that it was purely scientific and not a single time did the author use religion or the concept of God to proof anything which makes the book suitable for all people, believers and nonbelievers.
Very simple and very easy for the ones who want to know about science. Introduction level stories are easily grasped while reading books. I can recommend for the beginner readers.
I ended up enjoying this book a lot more than I was expecting to! I’ve not given it 4/5 stars because I enjoyed it more than fiction books I’ve read but more because it was so enjoyable for a non-fiction book (if that makes sense). I feel like my brain is full of facts, some of which did go way over my head, that I’m waiting to whip out and impress people with!
Książka jest pięknie wydana i porusza wiele interesujących tematów (choć z oczywistych przyczyn mocno przekrojowo), ale niepokoi mnie fakt, że pomimo czterech osób odpowiedzialnych za korektę polskiej wersji przeszły takie kwiatki jak:
"Uznaje się powszechnie, że >>chwila zero<< dla Układu Słonecznego nastąpiła 4567 miliardów lat temu". (str. 50)
Ok, zwykła literówka powiecie, zabrakło przecinka. Ale skoro to tylko przecinek, to czemu "miliardów" a nie "miliarda"? A jak to poniżej skomentujecie?
"Dzisiejsza atmosfera Ziemi składa się objętościowo z około 78 procent azotu, 32 procent tlenu, 1 procenta argonu i zmiennej ilości pary wodnej." (str. 62)
Jeśli takie błędy się pojawiają, to trochę traci się zaufanie do reszty informacji...
So much to choose from in this book. I often find myself quite enthralled by the evolution of humans, and have read quite a bit, so I was quite surprised when I learnt a few more things about it in this book - not that I couldn’t possibly learn any more about the subject, I just didn’t expect a pop-sci book to be the one to teach me. Pleasantly surprised. It’s a really light book. Nothing is too heavy, drawn-out, or dull. Most of the subject interested me and even those that didn’t, had something interesting for me to learn.
"Neredeyse" her şeyin kökenini anlatmak için uyguladıkları yöntemler herkes için gayet açıklayıcı olmuş. Açıklayıcı olması, bu gibi konulara temelden girmek isteyenler için yararlı olur. Aralarında ilgimi çekmeyen başlıklar da oldu tabii. Herkesin ilgisini çeken, çekmeyen bazı bölümler olacaktır. En sevdiğim bölüm sanırım, bilgi bölümüydü. Kitap; görselleriyle, grafikleriyle, hoşunuza gidecek şekilde tasarlanmış zaten. He, bir de açıklayıcı olmasının yanı sıra besleyici de.
"Gece gökyüzüne bakın; aslında geçmişe bakıyor olacaksınız."
A fascinating book. Very well researched and documented facts but I would have preferred a little more depth to it, at least in some places, otherwise, it is definitely a must read if you'd like to refresh or learn new facts about how it all started and evolved since the big bang up till the internet.
Simply brilliant. Compulsory read for everyone providing magnificent overview of the World - its history, creation and inhabitants. At the same time pointing out some (surprisingly) widely believed misconceptions. If you want to shine among friends, this book will help you come up with amazing random facts.
Not really what I expected when I picked it up at the library. I thought it would be more of a How it's Made type book, but instead it's much more about the creation of the universe and biology. My favorite thing about it was that after each page there was a detailed graphic about the topic that really helped explain the concept. It even helped me understand how binary numbers work.
Yeah pretty good. I would say that this book did exactly what it set out to. No more, no less. Something tells me I will have retained little to none of the information though, and I'm not entirely sure why that is. I just felt the information washing over me.
Partly I reckon that's down to the rigid and repetitive 'chapter' structure: begin with exciting statement, track into how that's relevant to the topic at hand, then get into the history of it all. This worked nicely in a way; you're never on a topic long, and feel that the pace is constantly moving along nicely. But that naturally comes at the cost of depth. This book read a bit like a YouTube video, and in fact I suspect that the 'bitesize' feel of the chapters was a device employed with the intent of hooking in younger generations of people.
I think that good non-fiction tells a story in its own way. It unfolds narratively, it employs literary devices, and guides you through its subject matter as if it were undulating between scenes and description. This book had shades of that, but those undulations were less pleasant country lane and more jerky Thrope Park rollercoaster. And even that makes it sound exciting, which this book sadly was not.
3 stars, because that's what I seem to give all non-fiction that's vaguely interesting. It doesn't feel fair to criticise it harsher than that, because again, it delivered on its aims. But that doesn't mitigate the fact that this is just another book on my shelf — destined, ultimately, to be forgotten.