A Short History of Nearly Everything: Part III

by Bill Bryson
In this engaging work of nonfiction, Bill Bryson explores profound questions about the origins of the universe, the development of life on Earth, and modern civilization.

Here are links to our lists for the book: Introduction–Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI
15 words 118 learners

Learn words with Flashcards and other activities

Definition First
Print Flashcards

Other learning activities

Answer a few questions about each word. Use this to prep for your next quiz! Compete with other teams in real time to see who answers the most questions correctly! Test your spelling acumen. Read the definition, listen to the word and try spelling it!

Teaching tools

Create and assign quizzes to your students to test their vocabulary. Assign learning activities including Practice, Vocabulary Jams and Spelling Bees to your students, and monitor their progress in real-time.

Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. joule
    a unit of electrical energy
    They had discovered the X ray, the cathode ray, the electron, and radioactivity, invented the ohm, the watt, the Kelvin, the joule, the amp, and the little erg.
  2. entropy
    energy in a system no longer available for mechanical work
    He studied theoretical physics and threw himself body and soul into work on entropy, a process at the heart of thermodynamics, which seemed to hold much promise for an ambitious young man.
  3. inextricably
    in a manner incapable of being disentangled or untied
    It is bound up — "inextricably interconnected," in Stephen Hawking’s expression — with the three dimensions of space in a curious dimension known as spacetime.
  4. inveterate
    habitual
    For all his gifts, Hubble was also an inveterate liar.
  5. paramecium
    a freshwater ciliate protozoan
    A typical paramecium, for instance, is about two microns wide, 0.002 millimeters, which is really very small.
  6. intractable
    difficult to manage or mold
    Confronted with an intractable problem, he was prepared to work at it harder and longer than most people and to be more receptive to unorthodox explanations.
  7. isotope
    atom with same atomic number, different number of neutrons
    It was just at this time that Harrison Brown of the University of Chicago developed a new method for counting lead isotopes in igneous rocks (which is to say those that were created through heating, as opposed to the laying down of sediments).
  8. contrail
    an artificial cloud created by an aircraft
    When he accelerated an alpha particle through the chamber to seed his make-believe clouds, it left a visible trail — like the contrails of a passing airliner.
  9. postulate
    maintain or assert
    As physicists built bigger and more ambitious machines, they began to find or postulate particles or particle families seemingly without number: muons, pions, hyperons, mesons, K-mesons, Higgs bosons, intermediate vector bosons, baiyons, tachyons.
  10. quark
    fundamental subatomic particle that has a fractional charge
    Fears have been raised that in their enthusiasm scientists might inadvertently create a black hole or even something called "strange quarks," which could, theoretically, interact with other subatomic particles and propagate uncontrollably.
  11. evanescent
    short-lived; tending to vanish or disappear
    Finding particles takes a certain amount of concentration. They are not just tiny and swift but also often tantalizingly evanescent. Particles can come into being and be gone again in as little as 0.000000000000000000000001 second
  12. galling
    causing irritation or annoyance
    It is slightly galling to think that we live in a universe that for the most part we can’t even see, but there you are.
  13. quintessence
    the highest element after air and earth and fire and water
    Scientists sometimes also call it vacuum energy or, more exotically, quintessence.
  14. aegis
    kindly endorsement and guidance
    In what has become a famous snub, the editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research told him: "Such speculations make interesting talk at cocktail parties, but it is not the sort of thing that ought to be published under serious scientific aegis."
  15. auspices
    kindly endorsement and guidance
    A symposium of many of the most important figures in the field was convened in London under the auspices of the Royal Society in 1964, and suddenly, it seemed, everyone was a convert.
Created on Tue Feb 21 20:07:29 EST 2017 (updated Tue Jul 01 12:18:23 EDT 2025)

Sign up now (it’s free!)

Whether you’re a teacher or a learner, Vocabulary.com can put you or your class on the path to systematic vocabulary improvement.