The Bathroom Readers Hysterical Society - Uncle Johns Bathroom Reader: Plunges into History

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Our contributors. Proud members of the Bathroom Readers Hysterical Institute. We couldnt have done it without them.

Christine Ammer

Lee Bienkowski

Allison Bocksruker

Michael Cala

Jennifer Carlisle

Steve Cecil

M. Christian

Wim Coleman

Kent Duryee

Susan Elkin

Diane Forrest

Clay Griffith

Kathryn Grogman

Shelley Johnson

Vickey Kalambakal

Mark Lardas

Jennifer Lee

Christopher Lord

Dennis Love

Cynthia MacGregor

David Scott Marley

Elizabeth McNulty

Art Montague

Tia Nevitt

JoAnn Padgett

Ken Padgett

Paul Paquet

Pat Perrin

Jessica Pierce

John Michael Scalzi, II

Frederick Sherwood

Joyce Slaton

Betty Sleep

Stuart Smoller

Stephanie Spadaccini

Alan Spencer

Susan Steiner

Johanna Stewart

Steve Theunissen

Diana Moes VandeHoef

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Hope you enjoyed the bookand if youre skipping to the end, what are you doing reading this page? Go back and finish!

Believe it or not.

A ccording to most scientists, our universe started out as this eensy-weensy piece of matter and metamorphosed into an ever-expanding universe. For SUV owners and people of great girth, this is welcome news. Creation scientists, on the other hand, dont believe it happened. And you generally cant convince them that maybe God set off the explosion.

Explanations of the Big Bang usually cause headaches among people who cant program VCRs. Thats because the theory states, in essence, A really long time ago there was nothing, and suddenly there was a whole lot of nothing, which was actually something, but nobody could really see it, even if there was somebody there, which there wasnt. Ouch!

The theory depends chiefly on the early theoretical work of Albert Einstein, the man who invented the Bad Hair Day.

Russian-American physicist George Gamow announced the Big Bang Theory in 1948. It was based on Einsteins Theory of Relativity and Cosmological Principle. (Liberal Arts majors: You may want to reach for the aspirin.)

Some 12 to 14 billion years ago, maybe longer, the portion of the universe we can see today was only a few millimeters across (thats a little smaller than a gnat) and extremely hot (thats HOT). The bang in question is the expansion of this small, hot, dense state into the vastly expanding and much cooler cosmos we currently inhabit. The universe is still expanding, gradually increasing the distance between our galaxy and other galaxies. Astronomers have actually observed this, and it fits very nicely with the theory. For a theory to be taken seriously on its way to becoming accepted as fact, it has to undergo rigorous testing. Since 1948, when Gamow first mentioned it, scientists have found the Big Bang Theory consistent with a number of important observations:

Astronomers can observe the expansion of the universe.

There is an observed abundance of helium, deuterium, and lithium in the universethree elements that scientists think were synthesized primarily in the first three minutes (wow!) of the universe.

The existence of significant amounts of cosmic microwave background radiation.

The first ever income tax was levied in Great Britain, to fund the wars against Napoleon.

This last, the cosmic microwave background radiation, is an important observation because radiation appears hotter in distant clouds of gas. Since light travels at a finite speed, we see these distant clouds at an earlier time in the history of the universe, when it was denser and, therefore, hotter.

One of the questions that keeps paranoiacs awake most nights is whether the currently expanding universe will continue to expand or whether it will ultimately contract and implode. This last is a definite possibility, but it wont happen tomorrow. We promise.

Theres lots more to it, all about how space and time are altered by gravity (yes, Space Rangers, in some models of space-time morphing, you may actually be your own grandfather!), and the possible shape of the universeball-shaped, saddle-shaped, flat, or maybe even doughnut-shaped. Which brings up the question of whether the universe is open or closed, that is, infinite or not.

In a closed universe like the doughnut-shaped model, you could start off in one direction and, if allowed enough time, ultimately return to your starting point. In an infinite universe, you would never return. Which means that if Kirk and Spock were working in an infinitely expanding universe, they would never have returned to the Enterprise from Pralax V and we would have missed all those great syndicated reruns! And that would have been a shame.

Lev Bronstein stole his jailers passport and was thereafter known as Leon Trotsky.

While American kids are learning about that nice Betsy Ross and her pretty flag, English schoolchildren are thrilling to the blood-and-guts saga of Queen Boudicca, one of Britains most revered heroinesdespite the fact that she slaughtered tens of thousands of her countrymen.

In the first century A.D., when the Romans pretty much ruled the world, they regarded their subjects as barbarians. This included the people of Britain, which of course is much the way, later in history, that the British Empire felt about many of its subjects in nations they tried to colonize. But thats another story.

During the Roman occupation of Britain, a Celtic tribe, the Iceni, was ruled by King Prasutagus and Queen Boudicca. When the king was dying, he wrote a will that he hoped would placate the Romans. In it, he divided his possessions between his daughters and the Roman emperor Nero. When the king died in A.D. 61, the local Roman authorities swooped in and started gathering up everything that belonged to the royal family. Boudicca protested, so they flogged her and, as they say in English textbooks, ravished her daughters.

Boudicca was determined to have her revenge. She pow-wowed with some of the neighboring tribes, who hadnt been treated any better by the Romans. She incited rebellion; the tribes greeted the idea with enthusiasm. They prepared for war.

The man theyd have to go up against was Suetonius, the commander-in-chief of the Roman troops in Britain. At the moment, he was otherwise engaged, leading an attack on the island of Mona, where other British rebels had sought refuge among the Druids, priests of the Celtic religion. When news reached the mainland that the Romans had slaughtered the Druids and destroyed all the sacred shrines and altars, the rest of Britain gladly fell into step behind Boudicca.