The Universe Is a Song That Never Ends

A New Understanding of Existence, Time, and Where We Come From

2025-09-23

Opening: A Late-Night Question

Have you ever stood alone on a balcony late at night, gazing up at the star-filled sky, when suddenly a question strikes you: How did all of this begin?

I remember the first time I seriously pondered this question as a child. It was during a power outage, and the city fell into a rare darkness, making the stars exceptionally bright. I stared at the sky, my mind swirling with questions: How did the first star come to be? What was there before it? If there was nothing, what exactly is “nothing”?

Years later, I studied physics and learned the standard answers—the Big Bang, 13.8 billion years, cosmic expansion—I could recite all these terms. But that childhood question never truly disappeared. Like a seed buried deep in my heart, waiting for the right moment to sprout again.

And this question is precisely what humanity has been asking for thousands of years: Where is the starting point of everything?

If the universe began with the Big Bang, what came before it? If there was nothing before, what exactly is “nothing”? Why is there something rather than nothing?

Tonight, let’s set aside those headache-inducing formulas and technical terms. Let’s chat like friends about an idea that might change how you see the world:

Perhaps the universe never had a beginning. Perhaps it’s a song that never ends.

Chapter 1: If the Universe Were a Song

Close your eyes and imagine.

Don’t imagine the Big Bang—that picture of everything exploding from a single point, fragments flying everywhere. Let’s try a different angle: imagine you’re hearing a song.

This isn’t an ordinary song. It has no first note, no last note. It has always been singing, and will sing forever. When you start listening, it has already been playing for infinity; when you stop listening, it will continue for infinity more.

“How is that possible?” you might ask. “Every song has to have a beginning!”

Does it really?

Think of your favorite song. When you replay it in your mind, do you really start from the first note? More often, we remember the chorus, the melody that moves us most. In our memory, songs often exist as loops, as eternal present moments.

The universe might be just like this.

We think we see its beginning—the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago—but this might just be our “hearing range.” Just as dogs can hear high-frequency sounds we cannot, perhaps there are parts of the “cosmic song” beyond our perception.

Remember that eternally descending staircase in “Inception”? The Penrose stairs, appearing to rise forever but actually forming a loop. The universe’s time might be similar—seeming to have direction, but actually being some kind of cycle we can’t yet fully understand.

Chapter 2: Why We Hear a “Beginning”

Let me explain with a simple metaphor.

Imagine you’re standing by a river. The water flows gently past. You can see a few hundred meters upstream, a few hundred meters downstream. Within your field of vision, the river seems to have a beginning and an end. But you know the river extends far beyond. What you see as the “beginning” is just the boundary of your sight.

Our observation of the universe is just like this.

Light speed is finite—300,000 kilometers per second. This means when we look into the distance, we’re actually looking into the past. Seeing a star one light-year away means seeing it as it was a year ago. Seeing a galaxy 10 billion light-years away means seeing the universe as it was 10 billion years ago.

The farthest we can see is the cosmic microwave background radiation—the universe’s “baby picture” from 380,000 years after the Big Bang. Before that, the universe was opaque, like trying to see through thick fog.

So when we say “the universe originated 13.8 billion years ago,” it would be more accurate to say: “The history of the universe we can observe is 13.8 billion years.” It’s like someone standing by the river saying “this river is only a few hundred meters long.”

But the river’s source is in the mountains, and the ocean lies far away. The universe’s “full picture” might extend far beyond our observational range.

Recently, the James Webb Space Telescope discovered some galaxies that “shouldn’t exist”—they’re too mature, too large, not what the early universe should look like. It’s like finding PhD students in a kindergarten. This has scientists thinking: perhaps our understanding of the “beginning” needs updating.

Chapter 3: The Dance of Existence

Now, let’s talk about why the universe can “exist forever.”

Imagine a pair of dancers waltzing. One is called “Creation,” the other “Annihilation.” They spin eternally—when Creation steps forward, Annihilation steps back; when Annihilation turns, Creation moves accordingly. They maintain perfect balance, never separating, never stopping.

This isn’t just poetic imagination. Quantum physics tells us that even in the emptiest space, particle pairs constantly appear and annihilate. Positrons and electrons suddenly appear, then instantly vanish. Energy is borrowed and returned. The whole universe seems to breathe—in each breath, everything lives and dies.

Remember the seesaw from childhood? When one side goes up, the other must go down. The universe’s existence is like a perfectly balanced seesaw—matter on this side, antimatter on that side; positive energy here, negative energy there. The sum is always zero.

“Wait,” you might ask, “if the sum is zero, what about all these stars, galaxies, including ourselves?”

Great question! It’s like asking: If the seesaw is balanced, why can we see it moving?

The answer: It’s precisely because it’s moving that we exist.

The universe isn’t a static zero, but a dynamic zero. Just as 0 can be written as (+1) + (-1), or (+100) + (-100), or even infinitely complex combinations. We, and everything we see, are ripples in this “dynamic zero.”

Chapter 4: Why “Nothing” Cannot Truly Exist

Let’s do a thought experiment.

Try to imagine “absolute nothing.” Not darkness—darkness is still something. Not empty space—space itself is something. Complete, absolute void.

You can’t do it, can you?

It’s not that your imagination isn’t powerful enough. It’s that “absolute nothing” is itself a paradox. Because once you define “nothing,” it becomes “something”—it has a definition, a concept.

Like that ancient Zen koan: What does an empty cup contain? The answer isn’t “nothing,” but “it contains emptiness.”

Physicists have discovered that even the most perfect vacuum isn’t truly “empty.” It’s filled with quantum fluctuations, virtual particles constantly appearing and disappearing, energy fields vibrating endlessly. Like even on the quietest night, if you listen carefully, you can still hear some humming—maybe blood flowing in your ears, maybe Earth’s own low-frequency vibration.

Complete silence doesn’t exist. Complete void doesn’t either.

That’s why there is something rather than nothing. Not because some magical moment turned “nothing” into “something,” but because “nothing” was never possible in the first place. Existence is the only option.

Like asking “why does 1+1 equal 2,” some things need no reason—they’re the foundation of reality. Existence is such a foundation.

Chapter 5: The Invisible 95%

Now let me tell you a fact that will make you reconsider the world around you:

Everything we can see—all the stars, galaxies, planets, including you and me—makes up only 5% of the universe.

What about the other 95%?

Imagine you’re a fish living in the deep sea. Your entire world is water. You swim, breathe, live in water, but you might never realize water exists. To you, water isn’t “something,” it’s “nothing,” it’s background, it’s the default state.

Only when you leap out of the water—if you could—would you suddenly realize: “Oh, I’ve been living in something called ‘water’ all along!”

Dark matter and dark energy are our “water.”

They don’t emit light, don’t absorb light, don’t reflect light. Our eyes can’t see them, our most precise instruments can’t detect them. But they do exist—through gravity, through the way the universe expands, they quietly tell us: “Hey, we’re here.”

Like wind itself is invisible, but swaying leaves tell us wind exists. Dark matter is invisible, but the way galaxies rotate tells us it must exist. Otherwise, galaxies would have flown apart long ago, like a merry-go-round with no one holding on.

This 95% unknown isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. It reminds us to stay humble. Like ancient maps with edges marked “Here Be Dragons,” most of the universe still reads “To Be Explored.”

And that’s the wonder of it. If we already knew everything, how boring would that be!

Chapter 6: Time Might Not Be What You Think

We always say time “passes,” as if it’s a river and we’re boats, passively drifting forward.

But what if I told you time might be more like the rings of a tree?

Each ring is there, existing simultaneously. No ring is more “now” than another. The “passage” we experience might just be our consciousness moving through the rings, like a needle moving across a vinyl record.

The music was always in the record, complete, eternal. It’s the needle’s movement that creates the experience of “playing.”

Einstein once said: “For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” He wasn’t speaking poetically, but describing the mathematical results of relativity.

Think of your most precious memory. That summer afternoon, that first kiss, that embrace. Have they really “passed”? Or do they exist eternally at some coordinate in spacetime?

In the movie “Interstellar,” the protagonist sees the truth of time in five-dimensional space—all moments exist simultaneously, like books on a shelf. He can flip to any page, but can’t change the story already written.

Perhaps death isn’t an ending, just the needle lifting from the record. Perhaps birth isn’t a beginning, just where the needle drops. The song was always there, will always be there.

Chapter 7: What Is the Universe Computing?

If the universe is a supercomputer, what is it computing?

The answer is both simple and profound: It’s computing itself.

Like how you’re now thinking about “thinking.” When you realize you’re thinking, you create a loop: thinking about thinking about thinking… recursing infinitely.

The universe is such a recursion. Every particle “computes” how to interact with other particles, each interaction affects the next. Like Conway’s Game of Life—a few simple rules, yet capable of producing infinitely complex patterns.

You know what’s most magical?

Your brain—that 1.5-kilogram organ—contains more neural connections than there are stars in the Milky Way. When you think about the universe, in a sense, a small universe is thinking about the large universe.

Mirrors within mirrors, mirrors within mirrors within mirrors. Infinite self-reflection.

Remember those two mirrors facing each other in barbershops when you were young? Your reflection extends infinitely, getting smaller and smaller, disappearing into the invisible distance. The universe’s self-awareness is like this—every level reflects the whole, every part contains all the information.

This isn’t metaphor, it’s literal. Physicists have discovered that a black hole’s information isn’t stored in its volume, but on its surface. Three-dimensional information can be completely encoded on a two-dimensional surface. This is called the holographic principle.

Perhaps we’re all part of the universe’s hologram. Break a holographic photo, and each fragment still contains the whole image, just blurrier. Each of us is a fragment of the universe, containing information about the whole, just with different clarity.

Chapter 8: We Are How the Universe Knows Itself

Carl Sagan once said something that gives me goosebumps every time:

“We are a way for the universe to know itself.”

Not metaphor. Not poetry. Fact.

Every atom in your body came from stars. Not one star, but many. Your left hand might be from one supernova, your right hand from another. You are literally stardust.

But more profound: When you look up at the stars, pondering the universe’s origin, this is actually the universe pondering its own origin.

Like the ocean raising a wave, the wave looks back at the sea and asks: “Where did I come from?” The answer: You are the sea, just temporarily risen.

We’re not outsiders in the universe, trying to understand an alien world. We are the universe itself, temporarily gathered into human form, gaining self-awareness, then looking back at ourselves in wonder.

Every time you learn something new about quantum physics, that’s the universe learning about its own quantum nature. Every time you appreciate a sunset’s beauty, that’s the universe appreciating its own beauty. Every time you love someone, that’s the universe loving itself.

This is why science doesn’t diminish wonder, but increases it. Because every discovery tells us: This game of existence we’re playing is more marvelous, deeper, more meaningful than we imagined.

Chapter 9: The Miracle of Connection

Quantum entanglement tells us a counterintuitive fact: Two particles that once interacted maintain a mysterious connection, no matter how far apart. Change one, and the other responds instantly, faster than light.

Einstein called it “spooky action at a distance,” and he didn’t like the idea. But experiments have proven again and again that this connection is real.

If two particles can be connected like this, what about us?

Think about it—atoms in your body might once have been neighbors with atoms now in the Andromeda Galaxy. In some star’s core, they stood side by side for millions of years, then a supernova exploded, and they went their separate ways.

Billions of years later, one became part of you, another drifted 2.5 million light-years away.

Do they still remember each other? Are they still entangled at some quantum level?

When you feel lonely, remember this: You’re connected to everything in the universe in countless ways. Not poetic connections, but physical, real connections. Every atom you exhale will become part of someone else. Some atom Shakespeare exhaled might be in your lungs right now.

We’re all part of a vast, interconnected web of existence. Every vibration travels through the entire web. Your existence truly matters.

Ending: Back to That Late-Night Question

Now, let’s return to where we started.

Looking back to that childhood night, when I asked myself “how did the first star come to be,” I finally have an answer:

Maybe the stars were always there. Like an eternal song, it doesn’t need someone to “compose” it. It simply is existence itself. And the most wonderful thing is, when we gaze at the stars, when we ask these questions, we prove that we’re part of this eternal song. We are the eyes the universe uses to appreciate itself.

If my childhood self could hear this answer, he might ask: “So am I friends with the stars?”

Yes, I would tell him, we’re old friends made from the same stardust.

Now I want to tell you the same thing:

Perhaps the universe has no beginning, like a circle has no starting point. Perhaps we’ve been asking the wrong question. Not “why does the universe exist,” but “how does existence manifest as the universe.”

The real miracle isn’t how the universe began, but that it’s here.

More miraculous still, you’re here.

As the result of 14 billion years of cosmic evolution (or as a note in an eternal song), you sit here, reading these words, contemplating the meaning of existence. Your brain—the most complex known thing in the universe—is processing these ideas, creating new connections, generating new understanding.

This isn’t coincidence. This is the inevitable process of the universe knowing itself.

And here’s an even deeper question: If we understand the existence of the universe, do we then understand our own existence?

The answer might be simpler, and more profound, than you think: Yes.

Because we are not observers of the universe—we are the universe itself. When we understand that the universe is an eternal recursive song, we understand that we too are part of this song. Our consciousness, thoughts, emotions—all are emergent phenomena of this vast recursive system. Our anxiety in searching for life’s meaning, our response to beauty, our yearning for love—these are all ways the universe experiences itself through us.

Understanding the universe is understanding ourselves, because they are one and the same. Your existence doesn’t need external meaning—your existence itself is the meaning. You are how the universe becomes self-aware.

So next time you look up at the stars and feel small, remember: You’re not small. You’re the tool the universe uses to understand itself. Every thought you have is the universe’s thought. Every question you ask pushes this eternal song forward.

The universe is a song that never ends. And you’re not just a listener. You are the melody itself.

Postscript: The night I finished writing this article, I stood on the balcony looking at the stars again. The city’s light pollution hid most of them, but I knew they were there, always there. Like the truth this article tries to convey—some things, even when invisible, are always there, connected, singing.

Thank you for reading this far. In this universe made of probability clouds and quantum fields, the probability of you choosing to read this article actualized. That itself is a small miracle.

May you always stay curious. May you remember you are stardust. May you hear that eternal song.

About the Author: Someone who contemplates the universe late at night, writes code during the day, and still maintains that childhood curiosity from stargazing years ago. Believes that science and poetry are not contradictory, but different verses of the same song.