George's Secret Key to the Universe

by Stephen Hawking

  “Drop off the letter tonight,” he said, cutting short any questions. “And now it’s time for you to go,” he added, hurrying them back out into the hallway.

  “What about the cash?” asked Ringo sharply. “When do we get our money?”

  “Come and see me on Monday at school,” said Dr. Reeper. “If you’ve delivered the letter, I will pay you handsomely. Now go.”

  At lunchtime on Monday, George was sitting quietly in the school cafeteria, minding his own business. He got out his lunchbox and looked inside it, wishing he could have bags of chips or chocolate bars or orange soda like the other kids. Instead, he had a spinach sandwich, a hard-boiled egg, yet more broccoli muffins, and some apple juice pressed by his mother. He took a large bite of his sandwich and sighed. He wished his parents would understand that he wanted to save the planet as much as they did, but he wanted to do it in his own way. It was all very well for his parents to lead their alternative lifestyles because they only hung around with their friends, who were just like them. They didn’t have to go to school every day with people like Ringo and his gang laughing at them because they wore funny clothes and ate different food and didn’t know what happened yesterday on the television. He tried to explain this to his dad, but all he heard back was, “We all have to do our part, George, if we’re going to save the Earth.”

  George knew this was true; he just thought it was unfair and rather pointless that his part meant him being a laughingstock at school and not having a computer at home. He had tried to explain to his parents how useful a computer could be.

  “But, Dad,” he had pointed out, “there’s stuff you could do on a computer too, stuff that would help you with your work. I mean, you could get lots of information from the Internet and organize your marches with e-mail. I could set it all up for you and show you how.” George had gazed hopefully at his dad. He thought he saw a spark of interest in his dad’s eyes, but it flickered and died.

  “I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” his dad had said. “We’re not getting a computer and that’s final.”

  That, thought George as he tried to swallow his lump of spinach sandwich, was why he had liked Eric so much. Eric had listened to George’s questions and given him honest replies—ones that made sense to George. George wondered if he dared stop by and see Eric later that afternoon. There was so much he wanted to ask him, and also he really wanted Eric to check his talk for the competition.

  Just before lunch he had finally summoned up the courage to sign up on the board for the science competition, the one with a computer as the first prize. Under “Topic” he had written, My Amazing Rock from Outer Space. It looked great as a title, although George still wasn’t sure his talk was any good. He’d taken his lucky rock from outer space out of his pocket while he stood in front of the bulletin board, but to his horror had found it was crumbling into dust! It was his lucky charm—the little piece of the Solar System he had picked up near Saturn. The principal had been delighted to see George writing his name on the board.

  He had bounced up as George filled out the form. “There you go, George! That’s the spirit! We’ll show them, won’t we?” He beamed at George. “We can’t just let Manor Park walk away with every trophy in the area, can we now?” Manor Park was a private school that hogged all the prizes and won all the sports matches with boring regularity.

  “Yes, sir,” said George, trying to stuff his outer-space rock back into his pocket. But the sharp-eyed principal spotted it.

  “Oh dear, a handful of dirt,” he said, grabbing a nearby trash can. “Toss it in here, George. We can’t have you going off to lunch with a pocket full of dust.” When George just stood there, rooted to the spot, the principal rattled the can impatiently under his nose. “I was just the same as a boy,” he said, a claim George doubted. As far as he was concerned, the principal had never been a boy; he’d been born wearing a suit and making enthusiastic comments about the Under-12 Football League. “Pockets full of nonsense. Drop it in and off you go.”

  Reluctantly George dropped the gray, crumbly remains of his most treasured possession into the can. He promised himself he would come back later and try and save it.

  As George munched his way through his sandwich, he thought about Eric and outer space and the competition the next day. While he was thinking, a hand crept over his shoulder and snatched a mufin out of his lunchbox.

  “Yum! This looks good!” said Ringo’s voice behind him. “Georgie’s famous muffins!” Ringo took a large bite, then made a spluttering sound as he spat it out.

  George didn’t need to look around to know that the whole dining room would be staring in his direction and snickering.

  “Ugh, that’s gross,” said Ringo, making fake gagging sounds behind him. “Let’s see if the rest is just as horrible.” His hand made another dive for George’s lunch, but George had had enough. As Ringo’s big paw rooted inside the handmade wooden box in which he kept his sandwiches, George slammed the lid down on his fingers.

  “Ow!” squealed Ringo. “Ow! Ow! Ow!” George opened the box again, allowing Ringo to pull out his hand.

  “What’s all this noise?” said the teacher on lunchroom duty, walking over. “Can’t you boys manage to do anything without causing trouble?”

  “Sir, Doctor Reeper, sir!” screeched Ringo, who was cradling his damaged hand. “I was just asking George what he had for lunch when he attacked me, sir! You better give him double detention, sir, for the rest of term! He’s broken my hand, sir!” Ringo smirked at Dr. Reeper, who gave him a cool glance.

  “Very well, Richard,” he said. “Go and see the school nurse and come to my room when she’s looked at your hand. I’ll deal with George.” He ordered him away with a point of his finger, and Ringo slouched away, grinning to himself.

  The rest of the dining room had fallen silent while they waited for Dr. Reeper to announce George’s punishment. But Dr. Reeper surprised them. Instead of giving George an earful, he just sat down next to him on the long bench. “Go on!” He waved a red hand at the rest of the room. “Get on with your lunches. The bell will ring soon enough, you know.” After a couple of seconds, the usual hubbub started up again as everyone lost interest in George and went back to his or her conversations.

  “So, George … ,” said Dr. Reeper chummily.

  “Yes, Doctor Reeper?” asked George nervously.

  “How are you?” Dr. Reeper sounded as though he really wanted to know.

  “Oh, um, fine,” said George, somewhat taken aback.

  “How are things at home?”

  “They’re … well … okay,” said George cautiously, hoping Greeper wasn’t going to ask him about Cosmos.

  “And how about your neighbor?” said Dr. Reeper, trying and failing to sound casual. “Have you seen him lately? Is he around at the moment? Or perhaps he has gone away …”

  George tried to figure out what answer Dr. Reeper wanted so he could give him the opposite one.

  “Perhaps people on the street are wondering where he’s gone,” went on Dr. Reeper, sounding spookier and spookier. “Maybe it seems that he has just disappeared! Vanished from view! No idea where he might be! Is that it?” He peered hopefully at George, who was now convinced that there was something very wrong with Dr. Reeper. “Almost as though”—Dr. Reeper sketched a shape in the air with his hands—“he just flew off into outer space and never came back. Hmm? What about that, George? Is that what’s happened, would you say?” The teacher was gazing at George, obviously wanting to hear that Eric had somehow melted away into thin air.

  “Actually,” said George, “I saw him this morning.” He hadn’t, but it seemed very important to tell Dr. Reeper he had.

  “Drat,” muttered Dr. Reeper angrily, suddenly getting to his feet. “Miserable boys.” He walked off without even bothering to say good-bye.

  George closed up his lunchbox and decided to head back to the bulletin board so that he could look for his rock in the trash can. As he hurried down th
e corridor, he passed Dr. Reeper’s office. He heard raised voices and stopped to listen through the door for a second.

  “I told you to deliver the note!” rasped the familiar voice of Dr. G. Reeper.

  “We did?” whined a boy’s voice, which sounded all too like Ringo’s.

  “You couldn’t have,” insisted Dr. Reeper. “You just couldn’t have.”

  George would have stayed to listen longer, but then the bell rang and he desperately wanted to find his special outer-space rock before class began. However, when he got back to the can, it had been emptied. There was only a clean plastic liner inside it. Saturn’s mini-moon had gone.

  It was pouring when George walked home that afternoon. Cold splats of water hurtled down from the dark gray sky as he trudged along. Cars dived through the big puddles at the edge of the road, sending tidal waves of dirty water swooshing over the pavement. By the time George reached his own street, he was shivering with cold. He got as far as Eric’s door and hovered anxiously on the doorstep. He was longing to ring the bell and ask the scientist to help him with his talk for the next day. And he also wanted to find out why Dr. Reeper might think he had disappeared. But he was worried Eric would still be angry with him and send him away. To ring or not to ring? What to do? The skies were getting darker and darker, and suddenly he heard a huge clap of thunder. The rain got even heavier, and George made up his mind. It was important to ask Eric about his talk and tell him about Dr. Reeper. He decided to be brave and ring the bell.

  Bing-bong! He waited for a few seconds and nothing happened. Just as he was wondering whether to ring again, the door flew open and Eric’s head popped out.

  “George!” he said in delight. “It’s you! Come in!” He reached out a long arm and whisked George inside, shutting the front door with a brisk slam. To his great surprise, George found himself standing in Eric’s hallway, his wet coat dripping onto the bare floorboards.

  “I’m so s-sorry,” he stammered.

  “What for?” said Eric, looking a little startled. “What have you done?”

  “About Annie … and the comet … and Cosmos,” George reminded him.

  “Oh, that!” said Eric. “I’d forgotten all about it! But now that you mention it, don’t worry. Annie told me that it was her idea, not yours, and that she made you go into outer space. I take it that’s true?” He looked at George over his heavy glasses, his bright eyes twinkling.

  “Um, yes, actually, it is,” said George with relief.

  “So really,” continued Eric, “I should be saying sorry to you, for jumping to the wrong conclusion. Instead of considering all the evidence, I just applied some common sense—otherwise known as prejudice—and came up with a totally wrong answer.”

  George didn’t really understand all of this, so he just nodded. From the library he could hear the sound of voices.

  “Are you having a party?” he asked.

  “Well, yes, a kind of party,” said Eric. “It’s a party of scientists, so we like to call it a conference. Why don’t you come in and listen? You might be interested. We’re talking about Mars. Annie’s had to miss it, I’m afraid, as she’s still at her granny’s. You can tell her about it if you stay.”

  “Oh yes, please!” said George, forgetting in his excitement to ask about his talk or tell Eric about Dr. Reeper. As he took off his wet coat and followed Eric into the library, he could hear a woman’s voice.

  “… this is the reason why my colleagues and I strongly advocate a thorough search of our closest neighbor. Who knows, in the end, what we may find by digging underneath the red surface …”

  Eric and George tiptoed into the library. It looked quite different from the last time George had seen it. All the books were neatly arranged on shelves, pictures of the Universe hung on the wall in frames, and in the corner lay a pile of carefully folded space suits. In the middle of the room, on rows of chairs, sat a group of scientists who were all different shapes and sizes and looked like they had come from all over the world. Eric showed George to a seat, a finger pressed to his lips to show that George should keep very quiet.

  Standing at the front of the room was the speaker, a tall, beautiful woman with a braid of thick red hair so long it reached right down past her waist. Her green eyes glittered as she smiled at the scientists gathered for the conference. Just above her head, Cosmos’s window portal was showing a red planet. The red-haired speaker continued her talk.

  “Isn’t it highly probable that evidence of life, had life existed on Mars in long-ago times, is not there for us to find on the surface? We should never forget that every now and then, sandstorms radically alter the planet’s surface, burying deeper and deeper beneath layers of inorganic dust the entire past of our red neighbor.”

  As she spoke, they all saw through Cosmos’s window an enormous sandstorm that took over the whole surface of the red planet.

  Eric bent his head toward George and whispered, “What she means is that even if there was once life on Mars, we wouldn’t see it on the surface today. In fact, I can tell you, this scientist strongly believes there was life on Mars at some stage. She sometimes even declares that there still is life there. That would be one of the most amazing discoveries of all time. But we can’t say much more than that at this stage. We need to get onto this beautiful red planet ourselves to find out.”

  George was about to ask why Mars was red, but realized that the speaker was finishing her talk.

  “Do you have any questions before we have a short break?” she asked her audience. “After that we will discuss our last and most important issue.”

  George felt very sad that he had only heard the end of the talk, so he raised his hand to ask something.

  Meanwhile all the scientists were murmuring, “Ooh, snacks!” None of them wanted to ask a question.

  “So let’s have our well-deserved break then,” said Eric, who hadn’t spotted George’s raised hand.

  The scientists rushed over to the tea cart in the corner of the room, anxious to nab all the jelly doughnuts before the others could grab them.

  But the red-haired speaker had noticed George’s thin arm waving in the air. “Well, well,” she said, looking at George. “Colleagues, we do have a question after all, and it’s from our new fellow down here.”

  The other scientists turned and looked at George. When they saw how small he was, they all smiled and brought their coffee and pastries back to their seats.

  “What would you like to know?” asked the speaker.

  “Um … please … if you don’t mind,” said George, suddenly feeling very shy. He wondered if his question was a really stupid one and whether everyone would laugh at him. He took a deep breath. “Why is Mars red?” he asked.

  “Good question!” said one of the other scientists, blowing on his tea. George breathed a sigh of relief. Professor Crzkzak, the red-haired speaker, whose name no one ever managed to pronounce, nodded and started to give George an answer.

  “If you walk through the hills and mountains here on Earth, you can sometimes see red patches of ground that are not covered with any plants. This is true, for instance, in the Grand Canyon in the United States. But there are many other places where this is also the case. The ground is this red color because there is iron there that has rusted. When iron becomes oxidized, which is another way of saying that it has rusted, it becomes red. It is because of the presence of oxidized iron, I mean rusted iron, that the surface of Mars is red.”

  “Do you mean that Mars is made of iron?” asked George.

  “Well, not quite. Since we sent some robots to Mars, we know that it is just a thin layer of rusted iron powder that gives Mars its red color. It seems that underneath the layer of red dust, the surface of Mars may be quite similar to the surface of the Earth—without the water, that is.”

  “So, there is no water on Mars?”

  “There is, but the water we know of is not liquid. On Mars it’s far too hot during the day—any water turns into vapor and is lo
st. So, the only places where water can remain are those where the temperature always remains cold, day and night, so that water can freeze and remain frozen. This happens at the poles. At the north pole of Mars we have found large quantities of frozen water: ice. It is the same on Earth, where large ice reservoirs can be found at the poles, in the Arctic and the Antarctic. Does that answer your question?”

  MARS

  Mars is the fourth closest planet to the Sun.

  Average distance to the Sun: 141.6 million miles (227.9 million km)

  Diameter at equator: 4,228.4 miles (6,805 km)

  Surface area: 0.284 × Earth’s surface area

  Volume: 0.151 × Earth’s volume

  Mass: 0.107 × Earth’s mass

  Gravity at the equator: 37.6% of Earth’s gravity at Earth’s equator

  Mars is a rocky planet with an iron core. In between its core and its red crust, there is a thick rocky layer. Mars also has a very thin atmosphere mostly made of carbon dioxide (95.3%), which we cannot breathe. The average temperature on Mars is very cold: around -76°F (-60°C).

  The largest volcanoes in the Solar System are on the surface of Mars.

  The largest one of all is called Olympus Mons. From one side to the other, it spreads over a disc-shaped area 403 miles (648 km) wide and is 15 miles (24 km) high. On Earth the largest volcano is on Hawaii. It is called Mauna Loa and reaches 2.54 miles (4.1 km) in height from sea level—though if one measures it from where its base starts at the bottom of the ocean, it rises 10.5 miles (17 km) high.

  Since Mars has an atmosphere, one can talk about Martian weather. It very much resembles what the weather would be like on a very cold desert-covered Earth. Sandstorms are common, and huge cyclonic storms of water-ice clouds measuring more than ten times the size of the United Kingdom have been observed.

  Mars is believed to have once been at the right temperature for liquid water to flow on its surface and carve the channels we can now see there. Today, the only confirmed water presence there is in the ice caps at the poles, where ice-water is mixed with solid carbon dioxide.