Did Stephen Hawking meet Leonardo DiCaprio and the presidents? Did friends help him with his inventions? How much did he learn about space, if he had never been there? Did he have moments of despondency? What would not humanity have, if Hawking would really have died in 2 years, as doctors predicted?

All these questions were raised during the lecture organized by the LuckyBooks project for Mariupol schoolchildren.

A month has passed since the outstanding British scientist Stephen Hawking died, but the world might never fully appreciate his contribution to understanding the humanity of the cosmos and the world around. That's why LuckyBooks decided to introduce Ukrainian teenagers to the scientist closer.

Stephen Hawking was not only an outstanding scientist, who managed to demonstrate how much we still do not really know about the universe in which we live. He is one of the few scientists who, despite the complexity of their field, managed to tell about it so that his conclusions and discoveries become interesting and understandable to everyone. Stephen Hawking is not even just a theoretical physicist or cosmologist, but a general cultural phenomenon: he more became a character of films, cartoons and popular TV shows. And his life and activity history is an example of inner strength, cheerfulness and optimism, which we all need to learn, - commented on such choice of personality, the lecturer Iryna Nikolaychuk.

The children loved the lecture - the Q&A was twice as long as the lecture. A quiz on the knowledge of outer space showed that almost everyone should receive a prize for excellent preparation for the topic. And this is not surprising, because it turned out that there were future scientists in the audience.

We prefer anatomy, geography and astronomy, and we dream of becoming scientists and working as pathologists and architects. We are sure that we will be able to learn and invent many interesting things in these areas. Just like Hawking. We heard about him before, but did not imagine what kind of person he was, - 7th grade pupils of the Mariupol School Yaroslav and Valeriy tell, who were very active during the lecture.

And those students from Mariupol who could not attend the lecture can get acquainted with the work of Stephen Hawking in the central children's library in Mariupol. LuckyBooks has presented several copies of the book "George and the Unbreakable Code" of the authorship of Stephen and Lucy Hawking, and the Ukrainian novelty "And what if" by Rendel Manro. And next week 1500 copies of these books will go to children's libraries and boarding schools all over the east of Ukraine - to Slavyansk, Konstantinovka, Kramatorsk, Lisichansk, Severodonetsk and other front-line cities.

Natalya Tyuhay, deputy director of the library, summed up the meeting with a motivating thought:

This lecture should once again prove to our young generation that success can always be achieved by reading, dreaming, believing in yourself and never giving up. Everyone who was here today has his own chance to become a new Hawking.