Don't worry Keith.

As they say...

He who laughs last doesn't understand the joke.






Michael. If the Big Bang happened in the forest, we might not hear it anyway as the jury is out on whether it makes a sound. Mind you, if I wanted to know what went Big Bang, a group of folk music aficionados might not be the first group I would ask?

In "A brief History of Time" Prof. Hawking does point out it is metaphor, in the same way as relating the occurrence to a point in time. For time to have meaning, position must too, giving us a four dimensional reference. Hawking notes that as the first three dimensions are irrelevant, (it occurred everywhere and is expanding from everywhere) therefore the final dimension, time, has no significance.

The 13.7 billion years relates to a theoretical starting point of entropy, and not to an explosion of the sort that would have my dog wake up barking.

In order to explain it to people who either don't buy or haven't figured out how to take the wrapper off New Scientist, such constructs are necessary. I'm about as qualified as you can get in my particular physics interest, but I can't get beyond requiring the comfort blanket of big bangs and time, and I suspect that goes for us all, the good Prof included.

(I buy it to look at the pretty pictures of course.)