In Nirvana, there is a curious skyscraper. It's a hodgepodge of primitive functionality, medieval craftsmanship, productive classicism, flowery rococo, and austere modernism. The building is the home of the greats of science and mathematics.
   The basement is rough and approximate. The methodical wedges of Babylonian cuneiform cover the lower wall, while colorful Egyptian hieroglyphics decorate the upper portion.
   The first floor, laid out with rigorous precision by Euclid and Eratosthenes, covers exactly one square block of heavenly real estate. Its residents appreciate the freely entering light of the sunrooms. Archimedes surprises everyone with his temper whenever his light is blocked. The library floor, contributed by Diophantus with lighting by Diogenes, is replete with 700,000 manuscripts not seen on Earth since 638 AD.
   On the wings of some middle floor, spires and minarets cap the rooms of al-Khwarizmi and his clan. The null room is striking with its missing furnishings.
   But our aim here is not to detail the lower stories, but to bring your attention to the squabbling going on near the most recent construction.

 

   Einstein reclines in a lounge chair on the top room's veranda, comfortable in his gedanken room. Only one thing disturbs the great man at this moment - a spike piercing through the sidewall from the rambunctious rooms of some newer physicists.
   Their temerity is claiming that the big bang started the universe.
   Einstein shook his shoulders and pulled his wiry hair. His gedanken became ge-uneasy. Hadn't he made it perfectly clear that there was no preferred coordinate system in the universe?
   Yet, if there were truly a big bang, using its origin would give a preferable symmetry, simplicity, to physical equations that would be undeniable.
   Einstein dialed a few floors below, using the psychic telephone by his lounge chair.
   The tired man closed his eyes and gently stroked his eyelids, while he waited for the inventor of the clockwork universe to answer.
   "Hello, Isaac. Help a new friend. How did you rest -- when you discovered that absolute time and place were lost?"
   Einstein listened a relative minute. "Why do I care?"