Up Goer: "Inflation"

Inspired by xkcd's Up Goer Five, I attempted to explain my research using only the ten hundred most common English words. It was pretty hard.

I try to find out what caused the beginning of everything. We think we know what happened back in time until almost the beginning. We know it was very hot then and that everything was moving away from everything else very fast. We have a good idea that explains how it got that way. The idea is called "inflation."

"Inflation" means that something very small gets very big very fast. Something starts out hundreds and hundreds of times smaller than anything we can see with our eyes and grows to be bigger than the biggest things we can see in the sky. After a while, the things slow down and make everything hot. Everything keeps getting bigger, but not as fast as before. Eventually, things turn into the stars and worlds we can see today.

This is a kind of crazy idea. Did it really happen? I am trying to find out. There is a kind of light that is used in the kitchen thing that warms food fast. This kind of light also comes from outer space. If "inflation" is real, then there will be more food-warming--type light from outer space. It's hard to find the answer because there is also food-warming--type light without "inflation." So to decide if "inflation" is real, we have to watch the food-warming--type light very carefully.

The best place to watch food-warming--type light is at the bottom of the world. The reason is that water blocks the food-warming--type light, and there is very little water there. But it's hard because it's so cold there and far away. It's also hard because we need to build something that can watch the light very carefully and then take it to the bottom of the world. So I work with a lot of really cool people to help make it. It still takes years to watch carefully enough to tell if "inflation" happened. We're still working on the answer.

I used Theo Sanderson's Up-Goer Five Text Editor to check the word list.