What was the Big Bang and how did the universe begin?
Picture the whole universe — every star, every galaxy, every spare sock that ever got lost — squeezed into a space smaller than a freckle. That's where our story starts. Not with a kaboom in empty space, but with everything, everywhere, packed unimaginably tight and hot. We call the moment it began to stretch out the Big Bang. And here's the first surprise: it wasn't really an explosion at all.
The name "Big Bang" makes you imagine dynamite going off in a dark room. But there was no room. There was no "outside" for anything to explode into. Instead, space itself began to expand — like the dough of a raisin loaf rising in the oven, with every raisin drifting away from every other one. Nothing flew through space. Space grew, and carried everything along for the ride.
