What most people think they know about the Big Bang is wrong

Many textbooks and science educators have attempted to describe the Big Bang as the birth of the universe — an explosive start that happened at a specific point creating matter and flinging it into the void like shrapnel from a grenade. But the Big Bang is not really the moment of creation — more like its aftermath. The Big Bang didn't emerge from a particular location in space, and it wasn't an explosion — at least not in the traditional sense. Popular culture &mdash