The Scale Of Time: From the Beginning by Joseph Lanzara
Publisher: New Arts Library
Genre: Non-Fiction, Contemporary
Rating: Best Book
Reviewed by AstilbeYou have not seen one like this before. . .
Open this book and a crazy ruler unfolds to measure the entire history of the universe, in the scale of 1”=25 million years. You couldn’t display something like this on any computer monitor, smart TV, or even IMAX. But here it is in one thin book. From the Big Bang to the death of the Sun, every hour is measured with slide-rule precision, and no short cuts. Informal text and stark graphics guide you from the origin of galaxies through the geologic periods of Earth, in Real Time. Another impossible chart accurately contrasts the Solar System’s dimensions with the distance of a Light Year. Rotate the book clockwise and delve into a million years of human evolution. This unique publication should please any seeker, student, hobbyist, or anyone who is curious about our place in this wondrous universe.
Whether you already love science or wish you could understand it better, keep reading.
The birth and early existence of Earth is one of those topics I find slightly difficult to wrap my mind around but endlessly fun to ponder. Looking at the illustrations and reading the captions were a great way to help me understand just how long it took for our planet to do everything from cool down long enough for land to form to how crucial oceans were for the formation and protection of the earliest microbial life forms. I appreciated how much effort was put into demonstrating just how much time passed from one notable event to the next, especially in the beginning.
By far my favorite portion of this book was the one that discussed the most recent discoveries about what Neanderthal society was like and how they reacted to the introduction of Homo Sapiens to their territory. This is one of those topics I love reading about, and the author had some incredibly interesting things to say about what might have happened between these two groups of humans tens to hundreds of thousands of years ago that I have not seen repeated too often in other contemporary books I’ve read on the subject.
This was such an educational read. I was especially intrigued by the descriptions of Rodinia, the oldest known supercontinent. Previously, I had only been aware of Pangaea, so it was cool to discover just how much geologists have been able to surmise about where the continents were probably arranged on Earth much earlier than that. I never would have guessed that continental drift could be tracked so precisely at such a distant point in the past. Mr. Lanzara did a fantastic job of explaining this and so many other scientific discoveries in a manner that was easy to understand for readers who don’t have a strong grasp of or maybe who even don’t know anything at all about the subject at hand already. That is a valuable skill that makes me eager to read more from him soon.
The existence of aliens was another thought-provoking section as well. It was not something I was expecting to find here, but the author did an excellent job of broaching the topic while still remaining firmly rooted in current scientific understanding of what – or who – might be out there. I will allow other readers the joy of discovering for themselves the rest of the details about this subject as it requires a certain amount of audience participation that makes reviewing it here less exciting than experiencing it for oneself.
The Scale Of Time: From the Beginning is one of the best books I’ve ever reviewed for Long and Short Reviews during the many years I’ve been part of this organization. I wholeheartedly recommend it.
Speak Your Mind