“Then let’s start at the beginning. The big-bang theory attempts to answer how the universe was first formed, but it doesn’t answer the bigger question: Why does the universe exist? Because of this, it’s a hollow mathematical model. It assumes everything came from nothing, ex nihilo, and states that the universe had a beginning. But there is another option: the universe has always existed.”

He stood and erased a portion of the whiteboard, marring his yellow sleeve. He wrote out an equation: 0 = 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 …

“This is the mathematical statement that shows the big bang is impossible. The sum of nothing, is nothing!”

He erased some of the plus signs and added minus: 0 = 0 − 0 + 0 − 0 + 0 − 0. “This is the Null Axiom, developed by Terence Witt, which states that the difference of nothing is nothing, meaning everything is made of nothing. Thus, the universe never had a beginning because it is nothing, which is also limitless and timeless.”

Davidson checked his watch. “Limitless also describes my thoughts on the matter and I need to speak at the symposium in an hour, so rather than blather on about nonexpansion, cosmic microwaves, decaying photons, or eternal equilibrium, I’ll cut right to the theological meat of the matter.

“Null physics mathematically describes the speaking of the reality into existence. In the same way the press spins a story by changing the context of facts, the nonreal is made real by the words of a creator spinning the context of limitless nothingness and telling a story.”

King rolled his head from side to side. “So … if God”—he made air quotations with his fingers—“spoke existence into being, what language did He speak?”

Davidson burst into laughter. When he saw neither of his guests sharing in the moment, he stopped. “You’re serious? The language of God?”

“Quite,” Alexander said.

The pen reentered Davidson’s mouth. “Some have speculated that DNA is the language of God. It has a coding system—an alphabet if you will—rules of spelling and grammar as well as meaning and purpose. In many ways it resembles computer code. And ninety-seven percent of it is considered junk, meaning we have yet to figure out what it says. It also obeys Zipf’s law, which simply shows that when words from a document, say a novel, are graphed by the number of times they appear in a book, from most popular to least popular, you get a straight line. DNA broken up into words and listed by popularity align perfectly with Zipf’s law. Shazam, it’s a language!”

“But we can’t speak the language of DNA,” King said. “We can’t verbalize it.”