THE STORY OF EVERYTHING*
There was no "before" the beginning of our universebecause once upon a time there was no time**
Before the moment the cosmos began
there was no OUTSIDE
The only place there was
was INSIDE
A very long time ago, the universe simply—
A wop BOP a loo BOP a LOP bam bom BOOM— burst into being
An event which we call the big bang
It was just a very tiny, ultra-hot fog of energy
Then it expanded—
The universe simply inflated into EXISTENCE
From smaller than an ATOM to about the size of an orange
in less than a TRILLIONTH of a second
Within 100 seconds, it was as big as our solar system
trillions of miles across
While this was happening, the pure energy of the cosmosbegan to cool and create MATTER in the form of countlesstrillions of SUBATOMIC PARTICLES—the first stuff there ever wasThe same kind of stuff which makes us
The rest were made of the opposite of matter—ANTIMATTERWhen the two encounter, they destroy each other in a flash of energy
Matter matters
Nothing matters
Yes, it does
No, it doesn’t
Beyond doubt
No way
Yes way
Negative
Positive
Nonexistence
Existence
Nothing
Something
Fortunately, there was just a bit more MATTER than ANTIMATTERJust one in a billion particles of stuff survived
Which was lucky for us, because that residue Is what
our present-day universe is made of
When the cosmos was 10 minutes old, It was alreadythousands of light-years in diameter
After that, everything spread out
and cooled for about 330,000 years
When, finally, the fog cleared,
the lights of the universe were switched on
and before you knew it—
Galaxies filled with stars orbited by
Planets orbited by
Moons
And on Mother Earth emerged
Algae
Plants
Animals
Us
Mother Earth rotates on her axis 24 hours
Morning, afternoon, evening and night
She orbits the sun 365 and 1/4th days
Spring, summer, fall and winter
East, South, West and North
Infant, youth, adult and elder
The sun our Mother revolves around is one of
100–400 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy
which is one of over two trillion galaxies
whirling around supermassive
black holes located at their their cores
95% of the universe is dark matter and energyGalaxies, stars, planets, plants, animals and usmake up only 5% of the visible universe
All this matter of mind boggling size
had to be built
atom
by
atom
The Dine people call the universe we see
and the one we don’t
Father Sky
* Stephan Hawking from film documentary, Into the Universe
With Stephen Hawking
**John D. Barrow
Father Sky and Mother Earth
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