Big History

This seems a little ambitious:

There is, to borrow from the cliche, something to fascinate everyone in the new exhibit on the Indiana University campus, titled, "From the Big Bang to the World Wide Web: The Origins of Everything." About three years in the making, the display will be open to the public for the first time at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Mathers Museum of World Cultures, 416 N. Indiana Ave.

The public education project was researched and assembled by anthropology professors Nick Toth and Kathy Schick, co-directors of the Stone Age Institute in Bloomington, with the assistance of Mathers Museum director Geoffrey W. Conrad and the museum staff.

The exhibition is small by museum standards -- about 300 items -- but huge in its scope. Toth explained that it embraces the "Big History" concept that examines history from the beginning of time to the present day.

"If you measured the history of the universe in the distance from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Empire State Building, your life would be about one inch," he said, illustrating the point.

Yeah, well, you know what they say. Give some people an inch . . .

I'm not sure I'm up to seeing the origins of everything, even if I believed that 300 items represented a big enough sample.