Big Bang: 13.8 billion years ago
The Big Bang occurred approximately 13.8 billion years ago, creating all space, time and matter in our universe from an infinitesimal point of energy.
Snapshot · The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Neil deGrasse Tyson On Aliens, Simulation Theory, and What Happens Inside A Black Hole
Explore episode
Jul 9, 2026
Where this was said
How Did the Big Bang Actually Happen?
At 22:08 · chapter starts 20:53
Asked to explain the Big Bang as if to a 12-year-old, Tyson obliges. Approximately 13.8 billion years ago, everything in the universe began as an infinitesimal, extremely hot point. [1] — Neil deGrasse Tyson "Dark matter + dark energy = 95% of universe: Everything humanity knows — biology, chemistry, physics, food — accounts for only 5% of what d…" 23:38 Energy and matter are interchangeable via Einstein's E=mc² (established in 1905), so as the hot fireball expanded and cooled, energy condensed into matter. Stars and galaxies formed over vast timescales, and the expansion continues today. But here's the humbling part: dark energy — a pressure in the vacuum of space causing the expansion to accelerate rather than slow — won a Nobel Prize in 1998 when its discovery overturned all predictions. Combined with dark matter (unexplained gravitational sources), these two unknowns constitute 95% of what drives the universe. Everything humanity has ever studied — every particle, molecule, organism, force — is just the remaining 5%. Tyson proposes renaming them 'Fred' and 'Wilma' since we have essentially no idea what either actually is.
Dark matter + dark energy = 95% of universe
Everything humanity knows — biology, chemistry, physics, food — accounts for only 5% of what drives the universe; dark matter and dark energy make up the rest.
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