How would you tell the story of the universe to an 8-10 year old child?

To get started, get started.
- William Wordsworth

The Big Bang is one of the greatest scientific achievements of the 20th century. It is difficult to imagine, but the year in 1900 we believed that the whole Universe - everything that exists - consists of our Milky Way and the stars, planets and nebulae inside it, and all this is subject to Newton's law of gravity.



How far we have come in such a short time! Most of us have heard from an early age that the Universe originated from the Big Bang, and although such a name is easy to remember, who among us knows how to explain this phenomenon to children asking questions about it? After all, most of us have difficulty understanding it, considering how discouraging this is!


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I think that it can be comprehended by children even 8 years old, and perhaps even younger. Imagine the following:

The Universe is a race, and the Big Bang is a starting pistol.

If you were a child and would like to compete against an adult, would it be fair to start the race from the same position and run the same distance?



Of course not. If we wanted to give you a chance to win, we would give you a head start to make the competition more honest.



This does not mean that the race would be 100% fair. If the handicap is too big, you will easily win, and if it is too small, adults will catch up with you long before the finish. But if we don’t know how fast you run, and how fast adults run in a race, we know that a head start will give you a chance.



In the universe, the race does not go on foot, and it’s not you and not an adult contender running to the finish line competing. The race is between all tiny particles of matter - small particles, of which we all consist - and gravity, the force that keeps us down, no matter where we are on Earth.



Just like a child with a handicap, every piece of matter in the Universe begins a race, having a chance to win.

We live here because here, on the Earth, around the Sun, in our Milky Way galaxy, gravity has won! All the little bits of matter that began to scatter from each other were pulled together by gravity. Over billions of years, and after many stars appeared and disappeared, one small part of the galaxy formed us!



But most of the space is empty, and galaxies share vast distances! Most galaxies scatter from each other too quickly for gravity to pull them together, and most of the matter scatters from galaxies and from each other. Only in a few places fortune smiled at gravity, and she won; in most cases, small pieces of matter had too much odds, and now they are running away. Today, most of them are too far apart!

The Universe is a big competition between small pieces of matter, which began to scatter from each other, and gravity, trying to pull them together. We are spectators who appeared very late; we have here in the Milky Way, gravity has long won. In fact, the universe is scattered billions of places the size of a galaxy, where gravity won!

But in most places, matter fled, and most individual galaxies also successfully scatter from each other.

If we had appeared earlier, we would have seen the process of this race: competition between gravity, trying to pull together pieces of the Universe and the original fast matter, trying to escape. And the sooner we are transported in our thoughts in time, the closer we will be to the beginning of the race, which was the Big Bang.

The Universe is a race, and the Big Bang is a starting pistol.