Uploaded July 2023 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago

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A stitch with Hank Green (@hankschannel), turned into a nursery rhyme like poem about the Big Bang, the origins of the universe, and other cosmic questions.

Before the Big Bang

There was no up
There was no down
There was no side to side
There was no light
There was no dark
Nor shape of any kind
There were no stars
Or planet Mars
Or protons to collide
There was no up
There was no down
There was no side to side

And furthermore, to underscore
This total lacking state
There was no here
There was no there
Because there was no space
And in this endless void
Which can't be thought of as a place
There was no time
And so no passing minutes, hours, days

Of all the paradoxes
That belabor common sense
I think this one's the greatest
This time before events
Because how did we get from nothing
To infinitely dense
From immeasurably small
To inconceivably immense

But before we get unmoored
From the question at the start
Let's take a breath and marvel
At when math becomes an art
Because we don't have to understand it
To know there was a time
When there was no up
There was no down
There was no side to side

Elle Cordova