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Why’s It So Hard To Believe That When You Die There Is Nothing
During my ten years at boarding school, there was one thing that kept me going: astronomy.
We had a library full of books on Greek mythology, British History, The Egyptians, Shakespeare, and The Hundred Years’ War. And not much else.
All the interesting ones were stashed away on a shelf marked Miscellaneous. This is where I found the astronomy books. Even if most of them were as old as the school itself, and still depicted the Earth as the centre of the universe.
Luckily, one or two were vaguely up-to-date and got me interested in string theory, pulsars, and black holes. As well as ideas on The Big Bang.
This was my territory. I gazed up at the stars every night from my dormitory window, but after a while they became the same old stars I’d seen the year before and the year before that.
What I wanted to know about was beyond the stars. The Unknown.
I got engrossed in the Origins of the Universe, and for two years it dominated my life.
If you’re not aware of The Big Bang Theory (and I'm sure you are) imagine a very tiny balloon expanding into what we now understand as the universe. Somewhere within the balloon is Earth — and everything else.
