Maestro’s story starts in Poland, more precisely Warsaw in 1867. On November 7, a little girl is born: Marie Sklodowska, who made history as Madame Curie. In 1891, Marie leaves for Paris to go to university, which isn’t possible for women in Poland at that time. She studies Physics and Mathematics and makes the acquaintance of her future husband, the physician Pierre Curie. For the next years, she is busy investigating the mysterious rays that Henri Becquerel discovered. At some point, she succeeds in gaining a substance out of pitchblende, which shows radiation: radium. She calls it “radioactive radiation”.

1945. An American airplane drops the first atomic bomb upon the Japanese city of Hiroshima. An awful event! On the path of the technical and scientific development to make this possible is a noteworthy and convinced pacifist: Albert Einstein. Maestro tells us about his childhood in Munich. Later Einstein went to Zurich and studied Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy. At the age of 21 he discovered one of the most meaningful formulas of physics: E=mc². Mass can be transformed into energy, according to the formula. Only a few years later, Einstein formulated his famous theory of relativity. This was revolutionary. He pointed out that time is no constant physical value.

Young Lorenz discovered his love for animals at a very young age. At his parents’ house in Altenberg, Austria, where he grew up, were plenty of them: dogs, monkeys, geese, ducks and many more. At first, Lorenz investigated the behavior of jackdaws, which he raised in a natural environment. He observed their courtship behavior, the pairing, hatching of their eggs and their fledglings’ first flight. Then he accompanied the geese and found out that it’s their mother’s call that binds the young animals to her. Lorenz imitated that call and thus he became father goose himself.

In Ancient Greece it was thought that a ship could be catapulted up to the moon by means of a tornado. The first person to have the idea that this would only be possible with a controlled rocket drive was the Russian Ziolkowsky. He made very precise calculations, but nobody believed him at his time. Not until 1945, the technical development was ready for a race to the moon between the Americans and the Russians. Gagarin was the first man in space, Leonov went floating in space and finally in 1965, Armstrong as the first person on earth set his foot upon the ground of the moon.

The children ask Maestro: What else is there for mankind to invent, after all those countless discoveries, now that even the moon has been visited? Maestro lists several of the unsolved questions: the origin of life, the source of matter, the unendingly small things, the secret of the cosmos and many more. And nobody, says Maestro, knows what the world will look like tomorrow.

All discoveries of former times have been made on the ship. This began with the simplest means: log-boats, rafts and anything that would swim. The Mediterranean region was dominated by three great naval powers for a long time: the Cretans, Phoenicians and Mycenae. Each one of them wanted the predominance and to reach that they even engaged in tough battles. The Egyptian Pharaohs wanted to have some say as well. The Greek dared to advance the most, up to the mysterious land of Thule, the land where the sun never sets…

400 B.C., this is where our story begins. Greece lives in the shadow of the mighty Persian Empire. Alexander grows up in the small kingdom of Macedonia. His mother Olympias arranges a good education for her son. She is convinced that Alexander is of divine origin and immortal. The boy believes his mother’s “wisdom” and tries to conquer the world as a grown-up man. The historians call him “Alexander the Great”, but at the age of 33 he shares the fate of any other mortal being.

They belonged to the first ones to discover America: The Vikings. That was 500 years before Christopher Columbus. His name was Erik, more precisely, Erik the Red, because his red hair was well recognizable even from a far distance. Erik got expelled from his country, so he set sail, went westwards and discovered Greenland. His son Leif went a step farther: he discovered Baffin Island, Labrador and Newfoundland. The new land seemed to have everything the Vikings needed, but there were original inhabitants in their way, that weren’t pleased by the arrival of the Vikings. The Vikings were smart, so they left and went towards Norway. That’s why in today’s Norway, there are plenty of little Eriks and Leifs with bright red hair.

His name is Temudjin, he is a little nomad boy and shall one day become one of the greatest conquerors of all times: Gengis Khan. But until then it’s still a long way. His father dies when he is still a child. An old tradition says that the firstborn son steps into his father’s shoes when he was chief. The other men won’t listen to a kid though, so the Mongols split up into different antagonizing clans. Temudjin learns with the aid of the old Shiarok how to fight and what’s important in life. One day, he masters to reunite his folk to go on conquering expeditions in the rest of the world.

1325. A young Berber named Ibn Battuta leaves Morocco for a pilgrimage to Mecca, as every good Muslim should. Little does he know, nor his parents, about the journey he’s about to go on. He will travel through 44 countries in 29 years. On his way, he experiences a lot of adventures, dangers and strokes of fate. The princes, sultans and viziers appreciate his sophistication and discretion. Sometimes he stays at one place for several years, but at some point he always continues his journey. He travels through Persia, the Black Sea and the deserts of Sahara and Gobi. Only when he reaches Beijing, he decides to return to his original home. This is where he writes his memoirs.

When Marco Polo came to China at the end of the 13th century, he was especially impressed by the huge five-masted junks. Yet, those ships were only the forerunners of what would come two centuries later: the most exceptional fleet the world had ever seen until then. The emperor Chu Ti managed to have his people build an armada which contained 300 ships and 27000 sailors.