Hotel breakfast is the creation of the universe. Entropy is low: Everyone there has slept on the same mattress, watched the same Friends reruns, searched for the same impossible-to-reach outlet hidden behind the same nicked-up furniture. Everyone smells of the same wall-mounted shampoo and body wash.

At 8:50am they file in. Spread out before them is the same half-hearted food they expected but still dread—and yet will accept. Gingerly they take what they must. Energy is building. Coffee. Powdered eggs. Cheerios. Subtitled local news plays on the TV, keeping things at a low simmer.

Then the big bang. The stars of this universe fling outwards: conference goers, presentation givers, tour bus riders, wedding attendees. Stored energy is burned. A city is formed. States, nations, planets are considered; imagination does the rest. By afternoon, expansion has reached its maximum and gravity begins—slowly, gently—to pull everyone back. “Maybe tomorrow I’ll try that coffee shop around the corner,” everyone thinks as they walk through the lobby back towards their room.

No. They will not. The universe must be created anew each day.