Human life is a staggeringly strange thing. On the surface of a ball of rock falling around a nuclear fireball in the blackness of a vacuum, the laws of nature somehow conspired to create a naked ape that can look up at the stars and wonder where it came from. In this spectacular new book, Professor Brian Cox will take readers out of this world and into a whole new dimension as he gives us a new perspective on human life. Following the spark of human curiosity from its ignition in the distant past to its journey into the future, the book will span the history of the Universe, as Brian attempts to understand the greatest wonder of them all — humankind. He will reveal how time, physics and chemistry came together to create a creature that can wonder at its own existence, blessed with an unquenchable thirst to discover not just where it came from, but how it can think, where it is going and if it is alone. Combining dramatic photography and innovative CGI with the magical storytelling that has become Brian's trademark, Brian will give us his personal take on the past, present and future of this unlikely and unfathomably precious phenomenon — the story of humanity from the birth of the Universe to the ultimate fate of our species.

Human life is a staggeringly strange thing. On the surface of a ball of rock falling around a nuclear fireball in the blackness of a vacuum the laws of nature conspired to create a naked ape that can look up at the stars and wonder where it came from. What is a human being? Objectively, nothing of consequence. Particles of dust in an infinite arena, present for an instant in eternity. Clumps of atoms in a universe with more galaxies than people. And yet a human being is necessary for the question itself to exist, and the presence of a question in the universe – any question – is the most wonderful thing. Questions require minds, and minds bring meaning. What is meaning? I don’t know, except that the universe and every pointless speck inside it means something to me. I am astonished by the existence of a single atom, and find my civilisation to be an outrageous imprint on reality. I don’t understand it. Nobody does, but it makes me smile. This book asks questions about our origins, our destiny, and our place in the universe. We have no right to expect answers; we have no right to even ask. But ask and wonder we do. Human Universe is first and foremost a love letter to humanity; a celebration of our outrageous fortune in existing at all. I have chosen to write my letter in the language of science, because there is no better demonstration of our magnificent ascent from dust to paragon of animals than the exponentiation of knowledge generated by science. Two million years ago we were apemen. Now we are spacemen. That has happened, as far as we know, nowhere else. That is worth celebrating.