Evolution

Where's my pen? I left it by the laser printer. Before that, I went to work and used a pen. Before that, I was watching TV at home.
Before that, I was born in Bakersfield, California. Before that, my parents were born in Clovis, New Mexico and Kasganj, India. Before that their parents born. Before that, the parents' parents' parents were born. Before that, hunter-gatherers lived and multiplied in the jungles, caves and plains of long ago. Before that, the first Homo Sapiens Sapiens was born. Before that, the first of the great apes was born. Before that, the first mammals were born. Before that, the amphibians were born, creating a link from sea to land that led to the land creatures like me. Before that, the first vertebrates were born in the primordial seas. Before that, the invertebrates were king. Before that, the first DNA was born. Before that, the seas formed and the earth cooled. Before that, the earth was hot and red, pummeled by frequently incoming asteroids from an unsettled situation as the planets continued to form. Before that, the solar system was born. The galaxy formed before that.

Most of the stars in the sky are blue. Those that are blue, which is most of them, are getting farther away from us. Most of them are getting farther from each other as well because the universe is expanding. Unique red stars exist too. They are stars that are getting closer to our position -- it doesn't mean we'll eventually meet, just that the geometric line between two tangents is shortening. In fact, I think one of stars of Orion's Belt is a reddie. If you run the time lapse movie of the universe backward, everything comes back to one fine point, which means matter itself exploded out of one point and that was the birth of the universe. The Big Bang.

The universe has no beginning, no middle, no end and no edge I've also heard said. I don't really know what that means and if that statement is a rejection of the Big Bang theory or just a part of it. But that pretty much explains how that pen wound up by the laser printer.

Photo by David Prasad 3/14/2009