ry you o grasp just iny, iallyunassuming, is a proton. It is just oo small.

    A proton is an infinitesimal part of an atom, antial thing.

    Protons are so small t a little dib of ink like t on tained in ons are exceedingly microscopic, to say t.

    No) sons doo abillionts normal size into a space so small t it on look enormous.

    Noo t tiny, tiny space about an ounce of matter. Excellent. You are ready to starta universe.

    I’m assuming of course t you ionary universe. If you’d preferinstead to build a more old-fasandard Big Bang universe, you’ll need additionalmaterials. In fact, you o gat mote and particle ofmatter bet into a spot so infinitesimallycompact t it  all. It is knoy.

    In eit ready for a really big bang. Naturally, you ire to a safeplace to observe tacle. Unfortunately, to retire to because outside ty to expand, it  be spreading outto fill a larger emptiness. t exists is t creates as it goes.

    It is natural but o visualize ty as a kind of pregnant dot  ty has no “around”

    around it. t to occupy, no place for it to be. e can’t even ask

    lately popped into being, like a good idea, or ing t moment. time doesn’t exist. tfor it to emerge from.

    And so, from nothing, our universe begins.

    In a single blinding pulse, a moment of glory mucoo s and expansive for any form ofy assumes ion. In tlively second (a second t many cosmologists e careers to so ever-finery and t govern pe t. t of  noenbillion degrees of