A Short History of Nearly Everything Characters

Penzias is an astronomer who, along with Robert Wilson, detected cosmic radiation from the Big Bang in 1965 and won a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978.

Wilson is an astronomer who, along with Arno Penzias, detected cosmic radiation from the Big Bang in 1965 and won a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978.

Dicke is an astronomer at Princeton University who inspired and explained many discoveries about the universe in the 1960s, including cosmic radiation from the Big Bang and the idea of an expanding universe.

Guth is an astronomer who formulated the “inflation theory” of the universe.

Rees is a British astronomer who analogized the likelihood of life to finding a suit that fits in a department store.

Christy is an astronomer who discovered Pluto’s moon in 1978.

Lowell is an astronomer who predicted Pluto’s existence.

Tombaugh is an astronomer who discovered Pluto.

Drake is an astronomer who calculated the likelihood of alien civilizations in the universe.

Evans is an amateur astronomer who spots supernovae using his backyard telescope.

Zwicky was a widely-disliked Bulgarian astronomer who coined the term “supernova.”

Oppenheimer was a scientist who popularizes the idea of neutron stars.

Thorsten is an astronomer who explains to Bill Bryson that there isn’t a star large enough to annihilate life on Earth by collapsing into a supernova.

Hoyle was a controversial astronomer who showed that supernova energy creates elemental matter.

Fowler collaborated with Fred Hoyle and received a Nobel Prize for supernova research.

Bouguer was a French hydrologist who led a disaster-plagued, decade-long expedition to the Equator with Charles Marie la Condamine to calculate Earth’s circumference in 1735.

La Condamine was a French soldier-mathematician who led a disaster-plagued decade-long expedition to the Equator with Pierre Bouguer to calculate Earth’s circumference in 1735.

Halley was a prolific mathematician, inventor, and scientist during the 17th and 18th centuries who pushed Isaac Newton into researching motion and gravity. Halley discovered the eponymous Halley’s Comet.

Newton was a quirky and eccentric mathematician in the 17th and 18th centuries who formulated the three laws of motion and discovered the force of gravity. He also argued that Earth is not a perfect sphere, but slightly squashed at the poles.

Norwood was a British sea navigator and scientist who calculated the distance of a degree (originating at Earth’s core) as 110.72km wide (on the surface) in 1637. He burned his subsequent research on trigonometry, fearing religious persecution.

Picard was a French astronomer who calculated the distance of a degree (originating at Earth’s core) as 110.46km wide (on the surface) in 1669.

Giovanni and Jacques Cassini were a father-son team who (incorrectly) disputed Newton’s claim that Earth is squashed at the poles.

Maskelyne was a British scientist who attempted to measure the transit of Venus from St. Helena in 1761. He surveyed Schiehallion mountain in 1774 to test Newton’s hypothesis that a plumb bomb suspended near a mountain will tilt toward it.

Mason was a British scientist who unsuccessfully attempted to measure the transit of Venus from Sumatra in 1761. Along with Jeremiah Dixon, he plotted the Mason-Dixon line.

Dixon was a British scientist who unsuccessfully attempted to measure the transit of Venus from Sumatra in 1761. Along with Charles Mason, he plotted the Mason-Dixon line.

Chappe was a French scientist who unsuccessfully attempted to measure the transit of Venus from Siberia in 1761.

Le Gentil was a French scientist who unsuccessfully attempted to measure the transit of Venus from India in 1761 and 1769.

Cook was a British explorer who successfully measured the transit of Venus from Tahiti in 1769, before claiming Australia as a British colony.

Lalande was a French astronomer who calculated Earth’s distance from the sun (150 million km) using James Cook’s measurements from the 1769 transit of Venus.

Hutton was a British mathematician who used Nevil Maskelyne’s 1774 survey of Schiehallion mountain to calculate the mass of Earth, the sun, and the other planets in the solar system.

Cavendish was a shy British scientist who discovered numerous scientific laws but didn’t publish his findings. He accurately calculated Earth’s mass (six billion trillion metric tons) in 1797 using a machine left to him by John Michell.

Michell was a British parson who invented a machine for calculating Earth’s mass. Henry Cavendish went on to utilize this machine for its intended purpose.

Hutton was a Scottish farmer and scientist who invented geology in the 1700s. He was a notoriously indecipherable writer.

Playfair was a British mathematician who summarized James Hutton’s ideas in more elegant prose in 1802.

Murchison was a geologist who published the esoteric but bestselling book The Silarium System in 1839.

Lyell is widely considered to be the father of modern geology.

Buckland was the eccentric professor of Charles Lyell.

Darwin developed the theory of evolution. He was profoundly influenced by Charles Lyell’s work, and he briefly postulated that parts of Earth were 300,662,400 years old.

Ussher was a scholar and church leader who argued that Earth was created “at midday on October 23, 4004 B.C.”

Buffon was a French naturalist and mathematician who argued that Earth was 75,000-168,000 years old and that the “New World” was a wasteland with shriveled animals and disfigured natives.

Kelvin was a prolific scientist who devised the scale of absolute temperature and the second law of thermodynamics and patented modern refrigeration. Kelvin severely underestimated Earth’s age.

Dr. Wistar analyzed the first dinosaur bone ever discovered, thinking it an uninteresting relic.

Jefferson was the third president of the United States, serving from 1801–1809. He commissioned numerous expeditions westward to disprove Buffon’s claims about the “New World.”

Smith was a mining surveyor who deduced that fossil age is related to rock strata.

Anning was a preteen girl who excavated and sold “sea monster” fossils in Dorset from 1812, many of which are now in London’s Natural History Museum.

Mantell was a country doctor and amateur fossil hunter in the 19th century.

Mrs. Mantell is the amateur fossil hunter Gideon Algernon Mantell’s wife. She discovered a Megalosaurus tooth fossil in Sussex in 1822.

Owen was a diabolical and “sinister” paleontologist who claimed credit for many other amateurs’ fossil discoveries (including many of Gideon Algernon Mantell’s). However, he also revolutionized museum culture by allowing working-class people to access the Natural History Museum in the 1800s.

Cope was an American paleontologist whose rivalry with Othniel Charles March resulted in the collective excavation of almost 140 species of dinosaur bones in the 1800s.

March was an American paleontologist whose rivalry with Edward Drinker Cope resulted in the collective excavation of almost 140 species of dinosaur bones in the 1800s.

Rutherford was a New Zealand farm boy who grew up to discover the concept of radioactive half-life in the early 1900s, thus providing concrete evidence that Earth was at least several hundred million years old. He also determined the structure of the atom.

Brand was a German pharmacist and alchemist who accidentally discovered phosphorus in 1675 while attempting to distill urine into gold.

Scheele was a Swedish chemist who devised a method for mass-producing phosphorous in the 1750s.

Lavoisier was a French nobleman who devised the system for naming elements. He was executed by guillotine during the French Revolution.

Madame Lavoisier was Antoine-Lauren Lavoisier’s wife and collaborator.

Marat was a scientist who had Lavoisier deposed during the French Revolution.

Von Rumford was an American-born British physicist who set up the British Institute.

Davy was a professor of chemistry at the British Institute who discovered numerous elements.

Berzelius was a Swedish scientist who standardized the symbolization of elements.

Newlands was an amateur chemist who attempted to devise a periodic table modeled on the octaves of the musical scale in the 1860s.

Mendeleyev was a Russian chemist who developed the periodic table of elements in 1869, inspired by the card game solitaire.

Dmitri Mendeleyev’s mother hitchhiked 4,000 miles to make sure her son could get an education.

Curie was a prolific French scientist who coined the term “radioactive” and became the only person in history to win Nobel Prizes in both Physics (1903) and Chemistry (1911).

Planck was a German scientist who formulated quantum theory in 1900.

Slipher was an American astronomer who noticed the red shift effect (which proves that distant galaxies are moving away from ours).

Leavitt was an observatory clerk who realized that pulsating red dwarf stars can function as “standard candles” against which to measure the relative distance of other stars.

Hubble was an American astronomer who combined Vesto Slipher’s red shift and Henrietta Swan Leavitt’s standard candle measure to discover that the universe is full of galaxies that are moving away from ours with increasing velocity (meaning that the universe is expanding).

Lemaitre was a Belgian theologian who realized Edwin Hubble’s findings proved that the universe expanded from a single starting point, anticipating the Big Bang theory.

Dalton was an English chemist who hypothesized in 1808 that elementary particles can’t be destroyed.

Bohr was a physicist who realized in 1913 that electrons appear to jump in space. He dubbed the phenomenon “quantum leap.”

Heisenberg was a physicist who developed an “uncertainty principle” to explain electron behavior.

Midgley was a commercial engineer who developed chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). He discovered that adding lead to gasoline reduced engine shudder, resulting in global pollution on a massive scale that burns a hole in the ozone layer and drastically increases atmospheric lead.

Libby was an American chemist who invented radiocarbon dating for bones.

Patterson was an American geochemist who dated Earth at 4,550 million years old (the current standing estimate) by measuring the half-life of uranium in meteorites.

Wilson was a Scottish physicist who accidentally invented the particle detector while trying to build a cloud machine.

Carl Sagan was a scientist and popular author who suggested that electrons might contain mini-universes of their own.

Gell-Man was an American physicist who hypothesized that subatomic particles were made of “quarks.”

Hapgood was a college professor who argued in 1955 that continental drift was a hoax.

Wegener was a German scientist who hypothesized in 1912 that Earth’s continents began as one land mass that he named “Pangaea.”

Holmes was a British geologist who realized that radioactive currents within Earth could cause continental drift.

Hess was a geologist and U.S. Navy officer who discovered during World War II that the ocean floor wasn’t sedimented, but mountainous.

Blackett was a British physicist who researched iron particles in rock to prove continental drift.

Runcorn was a British physicist who researched iron particles in rock to prove continental drift.

Matthews was a British marine geologist and geophysicist who postulated the theory of plate tectonics.

Vine was a British marine geologist and geophysicist who postulated the theory of plate tectonics.

Shoemaker was an American geologist who, using anomalous soil samples, discovered that an Arizona crater resulted from a meteor. This prompted subsequent asteroid impact research.

Levy is an amateur astronomer who studied asteroids alongside Shoemaker.

Walter Alvarez is a UC Berkeley professor who in the 1970s discovered the KT boundary (a thin layer of clay capturing asteroid debris that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago).

Luis Alvarez was Walter Alvarez’s father. He was a Nobel Prize-winning nuclear physicist.

Asaro was a UC Berkeley chemist who tested the clay in Walter Alvarez’s sample, confirming that it was from space.

Anderson incorrectly suggested that the Manson Crater was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Witzke incorrectly suggested that the Manson Crater was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Hildebrand discovered the impact site responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs in Mexico.

Gehrels was an American astrophysicist and asteroid hunter.

Voorhies was a geologist who discovered preserved bones in a swamp in Nebraska in 1971, indicating evidence of a volcanic eruption.

Bonnichsen was a geologist who matched bone samples in Nebraska to a volcanic eruption in Idaho.

Oldham was a geologist who hypothesized that Earth has a solid core from angles of rebounding seismic waves.

Mohorovičić was a seismologist who discovered that seismic shock waves rebound off something in Earth’s interior between the crust and the core.

Lehman was a Danish seismologist who hypothesized that Earth has two cores.

Richter was a scientist who devised the Richter scale along with Beno Gutenberg.

Gutenberg was a seismologist who devised the Richter scale along with Charles Richter.

Christiansen is a geologist who worked for the United States Geological Survey. In the 1960s, he realized that Yellowstone National Park is a supervolcano.

Doss is Yellowstone National Park’s geologist.

Thomas and Louise Brock are a husband-and-wife scientist team who discovered microbes living in hot, acidic matter in Yellowstone National Park in 1965, which defied prior knowledge about which conditions are hospitable to life.

De Bort was a French meteorologist who discovered the stratosphere while traveling by air balloon.

De Coriolis was a French engineer and mathematician who discovered the mechanism that causes wind (now named the “Coriolis effect”) in 1835.

Fahrenheit was a Dutch instrument-maker who invented the first accurate thermometer and devised the Fahrenheit scale in 1717.

Celsius was a Swedish scientist who devised the Celsius scale in 1742.

Howard was a British scientist who named the cloud types.

Forbes was a British naturalist who incorrectly concluded that marine life can’t live below 2,000 feet because of a lack of light.

Beebe was a deep sea diver who, along with Otis Barton, invented an early diving vessel in the 1930s.

Barton was a deep sea diver who, along with Charles William Beebe, invented an early diving vessel in the 1930s.

August and Jacques Piccard were a father-and-son diving team who devised a deep-sea vessel and descended to the lowest point on Earth, the Mariana Trench, in the 1950s. The feat has never been repeated by anyone else.

Miller was a graduate student who attempted to replicate the origins of life on Earth. In 1953, he showed that methane, ammonia, and hydrogen sulphide mixed with water and electricity create simple organic compounds.

Dawkins is a scientist and popular author who advanced the “gene’s eye view” of evolution and discusses the origins of life on Earth.

Bennett is scientist who surveys ancient rocks for organic compounds to deduce the conditions in which life on Earth started.

Vreeland is a scientist who claimed to resuscitate 250-million-year-old bacteria.

Haeckel was a 19th-century scientist who argued that bacteria needed to be added as a third category of living organism, in addition to plants and animals.

Whittaker was a scientist who proposed dividing life into five categories of organisms in 1969.

Woese was a scientist who proposed dividing life into 23 categories of organism (of which 19 are microbial) in 1976.

Stewart was a United States Surgeon General who, in the early 1960s, wrongly claimed that infectious disease would soon be completely eradicated due to the efficacy of penicillin.

Marshall is an Australian doctor who discovered in 1983 that deadly stomach ulcers and many stomach cancers are caused by bacteria.

Fortey is a paleontologist whose favorite ancient fossil is the “trilobite” (which lived long before the dinosaurs).

Walcott was a paleontologist who discovered the Burgess Shale fossil bed in Canada in 1909, which contained 500-million-year-old fossils from a period in history known as the Cambrian explosion.

Morris is an American scientist. As a graduate student, he studied the Burgess Shale fossils, which suggested that early life was—curiously—more complex than initially assumed.

Gould was an American scientist who suggested that the Cambrian explosion was a “trial and error” period that foreshadowed evolution.

Mason was an English schoolboy who discovered a 600-million-year-old Precambrian era flatworm fossil.

Jarvik was an eccentric Swedish scientist who locked away a fossil in 1948 that scientists mistakenly thought might be the ancestor fish that gave rise to human life.

Ellis a scientist who curates mosses in London’s Natural History Museum.

Banks was a British botanist who collected 30,000 plant specimens in the 1700s.

Linné was an eccentric Swedish botanist who simplified the botanic naming system.

Van Leeuwenhoek was a Dutch linen draper who invented the world’s most powerful microscope thus far in the 18th century.

Hartsoecker was a scientist who thought that sperm cells were tiny preformed people.

Pasteur was a famed scientist who realized that cells are essential to all life. He also made crucial discoveries in vaccination and pasteurization, which revolutionized the field of disease prevention.

FitzRoy was the captain of the HMS Beagle, a Royal Navy ship on which Charles Darwin traveled around the world before formulating his theory of evolution.

Spencer was an evolutionary scientist who coined the phrase “survival of the fittest.”

Wallace was an evolutionary scientist.

Huxley was a critic of evolutionary theory.

Paley was a theologian who argued for creationism in his 1802 “argument from design.”

Mendel was a monk who crossbred peas to examine heredity.

Miescher was a Swiss scientist who discovered DNA in 1869.

Morgan was a scientist who investigated chromosomes by breeding fruit flies.

Avery was a scientist who cross-bred bacteria to show that DNA is the active agent in heredity.

Wilkins was a scientist who discovered the structure of DNA.

Franklin was a scientist who discovered the structure of DNA despite facing substantive sexism in her work environment.

Crick was a scientist who discovered the structure of DNA.

Watson was a scientist who discovered the structure of DNA.

Schimper was a botanist who coined the term “ice age” in 1837.

Agassiz was a scientist who formulated the theory of ice ages in the 19th century.

Croll was a janitor who correctly hypothesized that ice ages are triggered by Earth wobbling on its axis.

Milankovitch was a scientist who improved on James Croll’s calculations about Earth’s ice ages.

Köppen was a scientist who correctly argued that cool summers trigger ice ages.

Dubois was a Dutch scientist who discovered early hominid fossils in Sumatra.

Dart was an anatomist who analyzed early hominid fossils.

Howell was a scientist who tried to simplify the hominid classification system.

Lucy was an early hominid whose fossilized remains were discovered in 1974 and dated to over 3 million years old.

Tattersall is a scientist who studies early hominid fossils.

Ridley is a science writer who studies Neanderthals.

Walker was a scientist who described Homo erectus as a fearsome creature.

Leakey is a scientist who discovered a near-complete early hominid skeleton.

Thorne was a scientist who posited that people from different regions of the world have different hominid ancestor species (the multiregional hypothesis).

Coon was a scientist who controversially argued that Alan Thorne’s multiregional hypothesis implied that some races are innately superior to others.

Harding is a population geneticist who thinks that early hominid research is in its infancy.

Ngalli is Bill Bryson’s guide while Bryson is exploring ancient tool beds in Kenya.

Flannery is an Australian naturalist who studies extinct species.

Rothschild was an independent collector of rare taxidermy animals who inadvertently rendered some species extinct.

Canning was an independent collector of rare taxidermy animals who inadvertently rendered some species extinct.

Bryan was a collector who killed the last black mamos bird.

Shakespeare was an 16th- and 17th-century English playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language.

Beethoven was a famous 18th- and 19th-century German classical composer.

Khan was a notorious military conqueror and the Emperor of the Mongol Empire from 1206–1227.