Jill was a student interviewed as part of the LASAR project. When Jill was in Y8 (i.e., c.12 years old in the English school system), she was asked about scientific ideas about the beginning of the Universe.
What does science say about the beginning of the universe?
Well, I think something like - is it a comet, … or a star that imploded, and then created a mass of carbon, and then the carbon formed the earth. And the hydrogen and the carbon joined to create the single-celled organisms and stuff and then they evolved into us. (laughs)
Yeah. So it was a star that imploded?
I think so. I think so, or exploded or imploded, I'm not sure.
…where did you get that, that idea from? How do you know these things that this is how…?
Em, well, teachers kind of say that.
Like many of the students interviewed for the LASAR project, Jill offered a version of the formation of the universe which relied upon an event (usually a collision or explosion) of pre-existing matter, rather than the canonical (but counter-intuitive) notion of the big bang as the whole universe coming into existence from nothing.
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Dr Keith S Taber kst24@cam.ac.uk
University of Cambridge Faculty of Education
© Keith S Taber, 2014