It is blustery out there, and there are intermittent but brief showers from the low clouds. When I approach the dining room window to check the weather, I immediately notice that the ceramic tiles on my terrace have been sprinkled a few minutes earlier. Many of the traces of large raindrops overlap, but the wind is drying the tiles already. The pattern of interconnected wet and dry blobs with fuzzy edges instantly reminds me of the famous image of the universe by George Smoot, who got the 2006 Nobel Prize in physics for it. It is called the universe’s baby picture, and it shows slight variations in the temperature of fourteen-billion-year-old radiation. The rapid drying of the tiles makes the pattern dynamic, too. Behold, the universe ageing in front of my eyes! Could there be any connection between the early universe and the drying ceramic tiles on my terrace? I very much doubt it, but the innocent question itself is amazing enough.