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Book: A Really Short History of Nearly Everything
Quotes of Book: A Really Short History of
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  1. Bill Bryson _ A Really Short History of

    Because they are so long-lived, atoms really get around. Every atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you. We are each so atomically numerous and so vigorously recycled at death that a significant number of our atoms-up to a billion for each of us, it has been suggested-probably once belonged to Shakespeare. A billion more each came from Buddha and Genghis Khan and Beethoven, and any other historical figure you care to name. {The personages have to be historical, apparently, as it takes the atoms some decades to become thoroughly redistributed; however much you may wish it, you are not yet one with Elvis Presley.} So we are all reincarnations-though short-lived ones. When we die our atoms will disassemble and move off to find new uses elsewhere-as part of a leaf or other human being or drop of dew. Atoms, however, go on practically forever.
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  2. Bill Bryson _ A Really Short History of

    To be sure, Wegener made mistakes. He asserted that Greenland is drifting west at about 1.6 kilometres a year, a clear nonsense. {Its more like a centimetre.}
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  3. Bill Bryson _ A Really Short History of

    For you to be here now, trillions of drifting atoms had somehow to assemble in an intricate and curiously obliging manner to create you.
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  4. Bill Bryson _ A Really Short History of

    We have a universe. It is a place of most wondrous and gratifying possibility, and beautiful, too. And it was all done in about the time it takes to make a sandwich.
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  5. Bill Bryson _ A Really Short History of

    In ways that we have barely begun to understand, trillions upon trillions of reflexive chemical reactions add up to a mobile, thinking, decision-making you-or, come to that, a rather less reflective but still incredibly organized dung beetle. Every living thing, never forget, is a wonder of atomic engineering.
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