Elle Cordova found fame in her insanely popular social media posts depicting conversations between planets, fonts and more. Her deadpan delivery remains mesmerizing to many so when I saw a TED talk popup in my YouTube recommendations, I simply had to watch.
She begins her talk with a poem inspired by her conversation with Hank Green. The poem struck me enough to memorialize it for myself here. I encourage any reader to see her TED talk but I’ve transcribed it as well (with assistance from Apple Notes) below
Before the Big Bang
Before the Big Bang,
there was no
there was no down.
There was no side to side.
There was no light.
There was no dark
no shape of any kind.
There were no stars or planet Mars
or protons to collide.
there was no up
there was no down
there was no side to side
and furthermore to underscore this total lacking state
there was no here
there was no there
because there was no space
and in this endless void
which can’t be thought of as a place
there was no time
and so no passing minutes, hours, days
of all the paradoxes
that labor common sense
I think this one’s the greatest
this time before events
how did we get from nothing
to infinitely dense?
from a measurably small
to inconceivably immense
but before we get on board from the question at the start
let’s take a breath and marvel
at when math becomes an art
because we don’t have to comprehend it
to know there was a time
when there was no up
there was no down
there was no side to side
Her nerdy art is genius!