Notes On: The Likelihood of Everything

After watching Prof. Brian Cox’s documentary on the Universe a year or two ago I decided to boil it down a bit…

They say the bang was not the start, that before the bang was time, space and energy. Just those three things; no matter.¹

So it was not physical before the bang, it was not something that could be perceived, not in the way that we perceive reality, at least.

Before the bang there was a dance, 
Of energy, space and time.
A vibration that grew and grew.

The dance was in a space 
No larger than a cave,
A tiny space, really.
(considering Space is quite big.)

It was a hot dance,
So hot in fact 
That it suddenly
And rapidly
Generated everything.

Absolutely everything.

BANG!

(...or more like a whooosh, of sorts,
or a really sudden, “kaphwooooah”
or something along those lines.
I mean, there is no sound in a vacuum 
so it was probably a quiet peaceful affair
all things considered)

After the “bang”; hydrogen and helium,
Hot and vibrating, spewed outward,
And gathered in gaseous gravity wells,
Where the vibration was violent and hot.

So dense and hot was this dance
That a reaction; a nuclear spark,
Resulted in heat and light.

The very first flicker of light. 

A star. Stars. Starlight. 
The first ones. Gigantic ones.
That grew, and grew,
And grew, And collapsed,
As things that grow often do. 

Collapsing into supernovae, 
Of natural elements;
The ones we know and love,
(And need)

Collapsing into black holes,
That gather it all together,
Galaxies of stuff,
That orbit ‘round their centre.

And these galaxies into local groups
That gather round each other,
All along the vibrations of space,
And fall into one another. 

Mixing and growing and forming
New stars, new planets 
New holes, New explosions.

Like our black hole, our galaxy, 
Our star, sitting pretty in a good spot. 

Away from the violent chaos.
Of our black hole: 
And its gamma ray bursts, 
fit to sterilise every star in its vicinity.
(But not ours)

Our star, sitting pretty in a good spot,
Where its planets keep their atmospheres,
And its living things remain living.

And sure, it’s not too strong either,
Or violent, or hot or cold,
It’s a grand Sun, really.

And Earth is close enough 
And far enough away.
And not too hot or too cold, 

Nor too big or too small;
With gravity enough for standing up 
And staying down; grounded.

And the water too,
In the air and on the ground, 
Liquid water; the good stuff. 

And time, lots of it. Billions of it,
Time of stability and consistency,
Time enough to grow; patient growth.

And longer still for complexity,
Thick, chaotic, beautiful,
Complex life. Of species and variety,
And adaptation;

Such that a lifeform could adapt.
To know its own existence,
To contemplate and problem solve,
And imagine.

And be curious enough to satisfy it;
Investigating and exploring, 

Beyond the cave, 
Beyond the hill and the river, 
Beyond the sea and the clouds,

To the lights in the night sky,
To deduce their movements and peculiarities,
And their physical nature.

Looking so far and so close, 
That they could see the first lights, 
The first stars, the beginning of time,

And its vibrations, 
And the ripples it left behind,
And the dull gas clouds
And the darkness beyond them,
Where time and space and energy
All danced in the dark.

Time enough for a life to understand
The likelihood of everything.

1. The Universe, 2021, Prof. Brian Cox