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William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
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This eBook edition published by William Collins in 2015
Text © Brian Cox and Andrew Cohen 2014
Photographs © individual copyright holders
Diagrams © HarperCollinsPublishers
Cover photographs © Shutterstock (ape); © NASA (arm)
By arrangement with the BBC.
The BBC logo is a trademark of the British Broadcasting Corporation and is used under licence.
BBC logo © BBC 2014
The authors assert their moral right to be identified as the authors of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-Book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008125080
eBook Edition © May 2015 ISBN: 9780008129798
Version: 2018-09-28
Praise for Professor Brian Cox:
‘Engaging, ambitious and creative.’ Guardian
‘He bridges the gap between our childish sense of wonder and a rather more professional grasp of the scale of things.’
Independent
‘If you didn’t utter a wow watching the TV, you will while reading the book.’
The Times
‘In this book of the acclaimed BBC2 TV series, Professor Cox shows us the cosmos as we have never seen it before – a place full of the most bizarre and powerful natural phenomena.’
Sunday Express
‘Cox’s romantic, lyrical approach to astrophysics all adds up to an experience that feels less like homework and more like having a story told to you. A really good story, too.’
Guardian
‘Will entertain and delight … what a priceless gift that would be.’
Independent on Sunday
From Brian
To George Albert Eagle:
It’s your future, little boy.
From Andrew
To my soulmate Anna, my beautiful children Benjamin, Martha and Theo, my wonderful mum Barbara, my brothers Paul and Howard and all of the ‘small creatures’ whom I am lucky enough to have with me in the vastness.
Contents
Copyright
Praise for Professor Brian Cox
Dedication
Where are We?
Oakbank Avenue, Chadderton, Oldham, Greater Manchester, England, United Kingdom, Europe, Earth, Milky Way, Observable Universe …?
Off Centre
Changing Perspective
Outwards to the Milky Way
Searching for Patterns in Starlight
Beyond the Milky Way
The Great Debate
The Political Ramifications of Reality, or ‘How to Avoid Getting Locked Up’
The Happiest Thought of My Life
A Day Without Yesterday
Are We Alone?
Science Fact or Fiction?
The First Aliens
Listen Very Carefully
The Golden Voyage
Alien Worlds
The Recipe for Life
Origins
A Brief History of Life on Earth
A Briefest Moment in Time
So, are We Alone?
Who are We?
Spaceman
Apeman
Lucy in the Sky
From the North Star to the Stars
Climate Change in the Rift Valley and Human Evolution
‘An Unprecedented Duel with Nature’
Farming: The Bedrock of Civilisation
The Kazak Adventure: Part 1
Intermission: Beyond Memory
The Kazak Adventure: Part 2
Why are We Here?
A Neat Piece of Logic
New Dawn Fades
The Rules of the Game
Nature’s Fingerprint
A Brief History of the Snowflake
How the Leopard Got Its Spots
A Universe Made for Us?
A Day Without Yesterday?
What is Our Future?