If there’s one thing the AT teaches, it is low-level ecstasy — something we could all do with more of in our lives. - Bill Bryson

Tune your television to any channel it doesn't receive and about 1 percent of the dancing static you see is accounted for by this ancient remnant of the Big Bang. The next time you complain that there is nothing on, remember that you can always watch the birth of the universe.

As Edward P. Tryon of Columbia University once put it: "In answer to the question of why it happened, I offer the modest proposal that our universe is simply one of those things that happen from time to time." To which adds Guth: "Although the creation of a universe might be very unlikely, Tryon emphasized that no one had counted the failed attempts."

I mused for a few moments on the question of which was worse, to lead a life so boring that you are easily enchanted, or a life so full of stimulus that you are easily bored.