beyond the beyond

One of the reasons I never did well in school was because I regularly asked questions that teachers could never answer. Because of that, I was labeled "a troublemaker" and "challenges authority" and "disruptive."

I think being a voracious reader was part of my problem. I didn't need some teacher parroting at the front of a class about the capital of Peru or the Battle of Yorktown. If I wanted to know that, I would simply look it up myself when I needed to know it.

If the teacher said water boiled at 212 degrees, for instance, I wanted to know why that specific temperature and not 211 or 213. More often than not, the teacher didn't know and I was either ignored or reprimanded for asking.

I heard something on the car radio the other day featuring some physicist yammering away about the edge of the universe. I immediately wanted to ask, "how do you know the universe actually has an edge and when you reach it?"

He had no way of hearing me, of course, but that did spur me to look it up when I got home. I found a variety of theories about the universe -- some experts think it has a defined limit while others think it's nearly infinite.

This type of mental woolgathering always ends up in an endless loop. Who created this potentially endless universe? What was here before that happened? What caused that to happen? If it's nearly infinite, what's beyond that?

Theologians will tell you the universe was created by a supreme being. If that's the case, who created the supreme being(s)? What was here before him or her or them?

Hunting around online, I did find this FAQ from Harvard that answered some of my questions. It's heartening to know I'm not the only one worried about this stuff.