I’ve been reading a science book lately..

I should point out, I was never bothered with Science at school, I am not into science, or interested in science, and I do not make a habit of reading science books..

But this one got me curious .. it was number 1 in the bestseller lists, and is written by travel writer Bill Bryson.

So I thought I’d give it a go, and it’s great!

I never knew science was so interesting..

Every physical body has it’s own gravitational pull, the bigger you are, the stronger the pull. So when you’re sat at your desk .. your paperclips are actually straining to move towards you. They don’t actually move, because the gravity of the earth is much stronger, and your gravitational pull is weaker than the friction they’d have to overcome to move across the desk.. but just to know that the little guys are sat there on the desk straining to get closer to you is pretty cool.

You never actually touch anything. You’re made up of billions of atoms. The electrons in your atoms react to the electrons in anything near you, and as both are negatively charged, they repel each other. So whilst you think you’re sitting on a chair, your electrons are repelling you away from it, so you’re actually hovering. If your electrons weren’t negatively charged, you’d simply pass ghostlike through other supposedly solid items. Again pretty cool.

Your atoms have lifespans themselves of millions of years. When you die, and decompose, your atoms wander off and find new things to become. Some of you may become a new leaf growing on a tree, some of your atoms join others in becoming a squirrel, and so on. And because this has obviously been going on forever, it is reckoned that every person alive today has about a million atoms that were once part of Shakespeare, and another million that were once Genghis Khan. Which again, is pretty cool.

About 2 or 3 extinction level comets pass through the Earths orbit every day (luckily the orbit is pretty huge), but statistically we’re overdue an impact. Because space is HUGE, the chances of us seeing the comet coming are minute. The most notice we’re likely to get before impact is .. one second..

There is so much more I want to write, but I’m getting boring, I’d recommend anyone who hasn’t read it, to buy the book. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson… who’d of thought science could be interesting!