Listen to the Universe by Dr. Masso Reid and Dr. Firmi
Listen to the Universe is a children’s GCRF (Global Challenges Research Funds) funded project. Taking the reader into a journey of discovering gravitational waves. Lila explains to her brother what gravitational waves are, how they originate, Einstein’s theory as well as taking us to see the LIGO India site and inside a detector!
The book is filled with flaps that open to reveal amazing images of astronomical events, pull taps to mimic how mirrors move in the detector as well as an impressive 3D pop-up of black holes colliding! The idea of the book is to help encourage children, particularly between 6-8 years old, in India to be curious about astronomy. There is a unique opportunity to promote STEM subjects during the building of the LIGO India gravitational wave observatory and this book is a crucial tool for this. Furthermore, local communities to the observatory site are of lower socioeconomic status, and this is an important time to create positive, long-term partnerships and to demystify science.
A 1000 copies were originally printed for dsitribution in the Maharastra district near the LIGO India site. The Newton-Bhabha partnership supported a further 2500 copies of the books to be printed and will be distributed in 2022.
