What caused the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago? It's a tricky question - even though the history of the Universe since then has been studied with exhaustive thoroughness by many. Now, however, Stephen Hawking and his colleagues have attempted to overcome the final limit of human knowledge. Did space, time, matter, and energy have a beginning, or have they existed since eternity? Is the question of what happened before the big bang even meaningful? And what role does man have in the cosmos?

German science journalist Rüdiger Vaas has been following Stephen Hawking's research for years, and has met the scientist several times in person. In his book, he reports on the latest theories and research topics of the most famous cosmologist of our time in an intriguing, yet understandable way.