"George's Secret Key to The Universe," a children's book written by Stephen Hawking and his daughter Lucy is easily a four star read, both entertaining for the young and old.
Just over nine years ago this month, in 2007, this book ignited imaginations of all ages to heighten the senses of all minds who take the time to read this awesome novel.
The focal character George is a young boy whose pet pig wonders into the house of his next door neighbor's Annie and her father Eric's house. Annie meets George while giving his pig some grape soda, and soon her and George ride the wings of wisdom together while soaring into outer space with the aide of her father Eric's super intelligent computer Cosmos.
Eric does his best to keep his super computer Cosmos a secret to the rest of the world, because if the wrong people learn the secrets of the universe, they could and most likely would use their knowledge for their own selfish goals and in the end, no one would benefit from knowing about our world of existence.
The villain is this story, a twisted grumpy older fellow who finds out about Eric's computer wants to steal it and wreak havoc upon the universe. Graham Reeper is his name, an incredible name for a character you love to hate. While dealing with Mr. Reeper, Annie and George also have to cope with the school bullies as they learn about the universe.
"George's Secret Key to The Universe" is much more than a story about the friendship of Annie and George, it's also a cool collection of facts about our solar system. I learned for example that the largest volcano in our galaxy is on Mars, Olympus Mons which is more than 400 miles wide and 15 miles high. In comparison, the largest volcano on Earth is in Hawaii, Mauna Loa is 10.5 miles high from the bottom of the ocean, more then 2.5 miles high off land. While visiting Hawaii, the locals said in their cool accent, if Mauna Loa goes (erupts) we go!
I also learned from reading this book that scientists find Black Holes because their gravitational pull forces many stars into their obit, Black Holes are not visible.
Black Holes may also lead to other universe's and possibly other life forms similar if not exact to human DNA, but what goes in a Black Hole, has never come back. Even the greatest minds cannot know what, if anything is beyond the Black Holes in the universe.
Another one the many neat facts I learned about the cosmos of our solar system is that Andromeda is the only galaxy moving toward ours, Andromeda is our neighboring galaxy.
Billions of years ago, way before Earth and the rest of the planets, clouds of gas and dusts wandered in outer space, both were spread out and scattered, it was gravity that pulled the two together to become denser and denser. In the simplest terms, it was gravity that started all life.
"George's Secret Key to The Universe" brilliantly combines a child's curiosity with the intelligence of great scientific mind.
Andromeda, our neighboring galaxy.
"The Universe In A Nutshell."
If your not a big fan of Stephen Hawking, this book is probably a one and a half star read for you, for us Hawking fans, it's a three and a half star read.
2001, Stephen Hawking
"The Universe In A Nutshell", released in November of 2001 is geared for high end scientific minds, but even though most of the facts and illustrations were much too complicated to understand, the parts that were understandable not only pointed out some intriguing facts, but sparked my imagination into what I personally think about the universe.
"The Universe In A Nutshell" is obviously about science, but does not rule out God. From reading this book and factoring in my own thoughts about the universe and how the Earth and humans were created, I've come to one conclusion; no matter what you believe, there is a beginning somewhere.
Once upon a time, there was no Earth, stars, other planets or humans, so either God, Gods or science started everything; in the beginning was a void of darkness...
Whether or not you believe in God or accept science, this book is a magnificent mind journey into the many realms of fact and fantasy.
Some expert mathematicians and scientist do not believe time travel is possible, while other great minds see time travel as a distinct possibility. If time travel is possible, humans would have to be able to find wormholes in outer space.
Wormholes in outer space, if they do exist are complex tubes in space, and if humans could travel at the speed of light (186,000 mph) into a wormhole they could journey off somewhere into the future and then comeback before they even left!
According to this book, DNA is the basis for all life on Earth which emerged 3.5 billion years ago. From reading Hawking's 2010 book "The Grand Design," Homo sapiens, the current race of humans have been around for more than 93,000 years. The Bible states that God created the Earth, and the people in six days, science states it took well over three billion years for our creation, and so the beliefs and arguments for God or science fester in the minds of many until the end of time.
Computer image of DNA molecules
Indeed, exploring ones thoughts and feelings as to how humans arrived, via science or God, delving too deep into the hows and why we're here may set the wheels in motion to insanity or on a path of perfect serenity and peace of mind.
