In the early 1970s, there was still a strong belief among physicists that no one could speak about what came before the Big Bang and stay within the boundaries of science. It was almost universally accepted that no scientist could explain why there is something and not nothing. This was the scientific climate Tryon existed in as he was getting settled working at Hunter College. But soon after arriving there he found himself in a writing project that he thought required him to do an exhaustive study of how modern science perceives our universe. In studying the many ways cosmologists see our universe, he thought he had discovered a way it might have come into existence that no one had ever thought of. He then wrote his idea up as a scientific paper and tried to get it published. He submitted it to "Physical Review Letters", but they rejected it. He then sent it to the British scientific journal "Nature", hoping it might be accepted as a "letter to the editor". An editor from the journal did not just accept it, but decided to make it a feature article.