The latest installment in my “I probably should’ve paid more attention in high school” book series is a book called A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson (that reminds me of a Rodney Dangerfield joke: ‘I always dreamt of going to college, especially when I was asleep in high school.’) It’s getting pretty good but it didn’t start out that way. I rarely fall asleep during the day but the first few chapters made me doze off at least 3 times. Especially when he started talking about cold fusion and sub-atomic particle supercolliders – B-O-R-I-N-G! All I could think was, ‘I wasted a whole audible.com credit on this big sleeping pill?’

The only thing that kept me from clicking the STOP button was that the narrator had a pleasant, interesting delivery and voice. In the world of audiobooks, the narrator can make or break a book. Recently, both my sister and my dad recommended to me a book called Natchez Burning. So I looked into it but when I did I found that the audio version got terrible reviews because the narrator was horrible. So I didn’t bother messing with it. Also, it’s 35 hours long. Even the guy (me) who seems to have an unlimited amount of free time won’t make that kind of commitment.

Back to this book, this one has a British guy doing the narrating – and you know them, English people always sound more intellectual and witty than they probably are. I like that accent, I could listen to them read a phone book out loud and I’d listen for at least a few minutes.

So, here are a few little factoids that I found interesting:

– Let’s pretend a galaxy of stars is the size of a frozen pea and the entire universe is the size of the Savvis Center where the St. ouis Blues play (the book used Boston Gardens but you get the idea!). Filling that arena completely up to the rafters with peas represents the number of galaxies in the universe and the vastness of it. Keep in mind that each pea (galaxy) has anywhere from 100 billion to 1 trillion stars.

– SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestial Intelligence) is an organization dedicated to finding proof of advanced life forms elsewhere in the universe. Since its formal inception during a conference held by its members in 1961, absolutely no evidence whatsoever has been discovered showing intelligent life existing anywhere in the universe except for Earth. However, the search to date has been in a minuscule slice of the immense emptiness of outer space. To illustrate: Imagine the universe being as large as all the oceans and seas on the earth. So far, SETI’s search area covers an 8 oz. glass of water.

– 99.5% of the earth’s surface is uninhabitable to humans. These areas include oceans, deserts, arctic regions, deep jungles, mountainous areas, etc.

– Earth’s entire population could live reasonably comfortably (Roof over your head, that’s about it.) in an area a little bit bigger than Texas. If we all stood shoulder like we were in a crowded bar, that bar would be slightly larger than Los Angeles.

– We know more about the sun’s interior, 93 million miles away, than we do about what’s directly beneath our feet about 20-30 miles down (the thickness of Earth’s continental crust). Underneath the floor of the ocean lies the oceanic crust, which is 3-6 miles thick.

– An attempt was made years ago in the middle of the Indian Ocean to drill through the crust below and reach the mantle, the area of our planet containing molten rock that reaches a temperature of 4000◦F. The scientists and engineers abandoned that effort after they soon realized that it would be easier to tighten a screw at street level while standing on top of the Empire State Building and using a long strand of spaghetti as a screwdriver.

– All knowledge of inner earth came from passing sound waves through Earth’s center and analyzing the echoes. How’d you like that job?

– If the world was an apple we haven’t even broken through the skin, not even close – we’ve barely scratched the surface. Sometimes we polish the apple and other times, we just bruise it.

– If our planet was the size of a desktop globe you remember from grade school, our atmosphere would take up as much room as the 3 coats of varnish on that globe.

– If Earth was 5% closer to the sun, it would be too hot for us to survive. 15% further away, too cold.

As much as I’ve enjoyed strolling down memory lane and sharing my high school Earth Science class with you, I gotta get going – I want to get back to my book!