Ralph Alpher was screwed by science. (How’s that for an opening sentence?)

Alpher was the physicist who pretty much discovered the “Big Bang” theory of how the universe (where we all live, you know?) was created. (Hint, it was NOT created by Republican conservatives…really it wasn’t.)

Basically, the idea is billions of years ago, there was this one tiny,tiny,tiny,tiny,tiny,tiny,tiny super dense point of matter—and then—BANG! The Universe is born. Far out,right? And, Alpher was the dude who figured that out in 1948.

But, scientists working for Bell Labs in 1964 confirmed Alpher’s theory and shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 1978.

Said Alpher in an interview years later : ” Was I hurt? Yes! How the hell did they think I’d feel?”

Well now, Alpher is dead–having never gotten that big prize.

A prime example of coming in with a bang, but going out in a whimper.