Third-Graders Get a Bang Out of Explaining the Universe
You probably read last week that scientists made a discovery that supports the Big Bang theory about the creation of the universe. Let me refresh your memory on the more crucial aspects of the BBT:
* All matter was once compressed into a sphere smaller than the period at the end of this sentence.
* The sphere exploded 15 billion years ago at a temperature of trillions of degrees, with the resultant explosion leading to the creation of stars and galaxies and sending the universe on the expansionary course it still travels today.
Whaddya mean, you don’t get it?
Whassamattah, you stoopid?
I’m intellectually secure enough to admit I don’t get it, either. I’ll go one step further: I don’t understand one iota of it. In fact, my response to the theory is a rather cool and defiant, “What a bunch of hooey,” and I’d be happy to go on “Nightline” and say so.
But you have to believe in something. It’s just that I need a theory that’s a little more graspable, given my understanding of science.
So I asked Evelyn Brantley’s third-grade class at Helen Estock Elementary School in Tustin to lend a hand. The beauty of being 8 or 9 years old is that there are very few concepts that elude you, because even if they do, you can always make something up.
Busy as the kids were, they agreed to help out. There wasn’t unanimous agreement on how the universe showed up, but none of them appear to have completely bought into the Big Bang Theory. Several worked God into their theories, crediting him with varying degrees of involvement.
Because the children are too unpretentious to title their theories, I took the liberty of attaching names.
* STICKY COMET THEORY: “The universe began when comets hit each other, got stuck and formed planets and when gases grouped together millions and billions of miles wide and long. Then the comet hit the gases and it exploded and ignited with the impact of a million and centillion atomic and nuclear bombs.”
* BEFORE-MY-TIME THEORY: “The universe began when I wasn’t even born. God was born. I think he was born. He made planets and states.”
* INVISIBLE MAN THEORY: “The universe began when people came from Mars and the people were invisible. They could not build houses because they were invisible.”
* ANGRY EINSTEIN THEORY: “The universe began when aliens didn’t have anything to threaten and God made Einstein to blow them up. There was a big explosion.”
* FAIRY PICNIC THEORY: “The universe began when it was a hot day and the flowers bloomed and the trees grew fruits, and a fairy’s family that was out picking fruits with her family. They sat down and had a picnic.”
* LITTLE PERSON THEORY: “The universe began when the Milky Way split up into little pieces and formed a little person named God. Then the person named God made more people like him.”
* MARTIAN RELOCATION THEORY: “The universe began when some people from Mars brought kids because they had too many kids. Then they grew up and married each other.”
* THE BUDWEISER THEORY: “The universe began when aliens came and landed on other planets and went ‘eek borf borf snort,’ and then E.T. came and said ‘aaah’ because there were no Reese’s Pieces there. The aliens came from la-la land and acted like the Care Bears. And the aliens drank Budweiser and swam in craters.”
* GOD-ON-A-ROLL THEORY: “The universe began when God said: ‘Let there be light.’ And there was light. And then He went on and on saying things and that was how the universe began.”
* SINGLE DROPLET THEORY: “The universe began when the earth was covered with brown, dead grass. And there was wind and never rain or snow. One day a miracle happened, and one drop of water fell from the sky and the earth was born.”
* ROARING KING THEORY: “The universe began when the aliens from outer space came to Earth and the king of the jungle looked at the aliens and got scared and roared so loud the ground started shaking and the universe came out of the ground.”
* DIAL O THEORY: “The universe began when aliens landed on Earth and called the operator and said: ‘Tell God to make a universe.’ ”
Thank you, kids. You’ve restored my faith in my own sense of things. This big-bang stuff was making me think I was crazy.
If you don’t mind, I’d like to incorporate some of your theories into my appearance on “Nightline,” although I now doubt that any cosmologists would show up to challenge me.
And one more thing: You have the right to modify any or all parts of your theories should future studies warrant it.
