When exactly did life begin? What really happened during the big bang - and before it? Is the universe expanding? Is dark matter real? Do we live in one of many worlds? What´s more, how can we prove any of this? This book is all about how we - any of us - can gain an understanding of the Universe in all its awe-inspiring glory. Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw take us on an epic journey of scientific exploration, revealing how the biggest questions - from the size of the earth to the distance to the stars - are answerable from our own back gardens. You don´t need a Large Hadron Collider or a Hubble Space Telescope to explore the cosmos. You just need this book.