Stephen Hawking - Unlocking the Universe

STEPHEN HAWKING was a brilliant theoretical physicist, generally considered to have been one of the worlds greatest thinkers. He was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge and was the author of A Brief History of Time, which was an international bestseller. His other books for the general reader include A Briefer History of Time, the essay collection Black Holes and Baby Universe, The Universe in a Nutshell, and Brief Answers to the Big Questions. He died on 14 March 2018.

LUCY HAWKING uses storytelling to help audiences understand and engage with science. She is the co-creator of the George series with her father, Stephen Hawking, which was a global hit, translated into over forty languages. Among the awards Lucy has received for her work is an honorary doctorate of sciences by Queen Mary University of London. Over the past four years, Lucy created two hugely successful projects with the European Space Agency and Curved House to increase STEM engagement in primary schools through arts-based learning. Lucy has made radio documentaries for the BBC and a virtual-reality film with the Guardian Media Group about autism in teenage girls. She is chair of the Stephen Hawking Foundation.

The Milky Way is another name for the galaxy that contains our Solar System so called because of the hazy, milky band of light we can see from Earth. Find out more about our galaxy on : A Voyage Across the Universe.How would it feel to visit an erupting volcano? Find out on .In 1969 Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on the Moon.THE BLUE MARBLE The first photograph taken of our Earth from the surface of the Moon. Find out more about Neil and Buzzs journey on .The Krmn line is the boundary between Earths atmosphere and outer space. Read more on .A model of our Solar System, which shows the planets, in order, moving away from the Sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.The surface of our neighbouring planet Mars is cold and rocky, with a thin atmosphere made mostly of carbon dioxide. Find out more on .
Discover the secret behind Saturns rings on .The Andromeda Galaxy is the closest large galaxy to our own Milky Way. You can read about it on .Alpha Centauri is the closest star system to our Sun. Find out more on .This is a rendered image of what a black hole looks like to us. Read Stephen Hawkings essay about black holes on .

PUFFIN BOOKS

UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia
India | New Zealand | South Africa

Puffin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

www.penguin.co.uk
www.puffin.co.uk
www.ladybird.co.uk

First published 2020

Copyright Lucy Hawking, 2020

The acknowledgements on constitute an extension of this copyright page

The moral right of the authors and illustrator has been asserted

Text design, illustrations and diagrams by Jan Bielecki

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the authors and publishers rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

ISBN: 978-0-241-41534-4

All correspondence to:
Puffin Books
Penguin Random House Childrens
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL

Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet

Stephen Hawking

Throughout my life, I had the extraordinary privilege of spending time with, talking to, and asking questions of some of the worlds greatest and most innovative scientists who were the friends and colleagues of my father, Stephen. My father was an amazing scientist who realized how important it was to talk about the work he did in ways that people could understand. He thought that everyone had the right to know what scientists did and what it meant. So, to me, it seemed entirely normal to be a schoolgirl who asked questions and got answers. Sometimes the answers were baffling or thoughtprovoking or even made me angry. But I got answers from people who knew what they were talking about. And listening to them or asking yet more questions made me feel as though I could reach out and touch the magnificence of the Universe.

When I grew up, I realized how unusual it was to have had this opportunity. If Ive tried to do one thing with my work, it is to share the great piece of luck I had in life to have access to these fascinating, original, creative, brilliant and hilarious people by putting them into the books. Starting with my fathers amazing essay in our first book together, Georges Secret Key to the Universe, the whole George series is enriched and illuminated by the voices of these diverse and fabulous scientists and experts, writing about their research and their lives work for young readers.

Of course, thanks to the internet, we now have lots of information that is more available and much easier to access than when I was a child. But what does it all mean? And how do you know that what you read on the internet is true? My father and I realized, as we wrote together, that we could turn information into knowledge with the help of our family of experts and scientists.

Unlocking the Universe brings all the wonderful essays and facts we had collected together into one book and includes some amazing new content as well, on topics Ive always wanted to explore, such as genetics, the multiverse and a new essay on black holes. Our newest writers also tackle the ethics of AI and the problem of science denial and our youngest ever contributor takes on climate change and how it feels to be a teenager in a global-warming world.