Astrophysics for Dummies

There is an eBook of that name, of course, dummy.

But we wouldn't be who we are if this eBook was the subject of the post. Another Discovery Channel science show on the universe triggered an insight worthy of the university researchers described in one long, megalomanical sentence in one of Douglas Adams' books.

Painstakingly working out the glaringly obvious, the principle according to Adams and according to our own Random Research (RR) team, our team arrived at the definitive conclusion on the creation stories of the great religious texts.

The creation stories in these texts are nothing but the earliest known version of Astrophysics for Dummies. They sound like smart daddy explaining the universe to a toddler. Or the stranded visitor explaining the mystery of the stars to some nice but not very scientifically trained, more or less naked mammals. The big religious books have the Big Bang and the theory of a universe that eventually contracts again and starts over. And lots more.

They may not be totally right, although the Big Bang holds for the Bible and the Bhagavad Gita. Since great minds think alike, we happily point to the Wikipedia quote of nuclear bomb maker Robert Oppenheimer about his work and the Gita.

The RR team is driven by a need to make sense of the world, and every time they belatedly find something obvious, there is much song and dance around the office.

It's perfect because you can easily verify our theories for yourself. Look at any recent "what's up with the universe" documentary, and grab the creation stories of the bible and the gita from the internet.