WHAT'S OUT THERE? While we don't have time travel per se, those of you of a certain age that would like to go back to college age should try and find themselves a cosmologist and discuss what was there before the Big Bang. You'll instantly find yourself back in a college dorm, beer can or joint in hand, stonily arguing the same thing time and again. There will be slight differences this time around. You won't be in your dorm, you (probably) won't have the artificial stimulants and you'll be fully awake. But you'll wish you weren't and you'll wish you were. Asleep and stoned, that is. The discovery of the Higgs-Beson Particle has re-ignited interest in the origins of the universe. There are those who believe in the Steady State Universe, which states that the Universe is, was and always will be here. There are those that believe God created it. Most cosmologists these days tend to go along with the Big Bang Theory, which states that something ignited an infinitely tiny speck and the whole thing started. As things stand that's okay, but try and find out what was there before and its doobie time. Nothing. There was nothing there, the Big Bang theorists earnestly say. What did it look like, you ask. Nothing, it was nothing. It was dark and...their voices fade into obscurity. Nothing as in seeable nothing? I'm reminded of a poem I wrote-"close your eyes and you still can think." "Hard to imagine nothingness forever. I don't think it can be done." What does it look like? Uh, nothing. It's got to look like something. This conversation goes round and round until you think you're stoned. Or wish you were. It's just like those old college bullshit sessions when everybody was drunk or stoned. Except now they're getting paid for it. Me,I prefer Robert Silverberg's "When We Went To See The End Of The World". Turned out there was a big rock, a lot of scaffolding and a sign saying "Closed.Under Construction. Come Back Later." So we went home. THAT I can understand.