the simple universe is a new model of the origin and structure of the universe as we observe it from our local position here on earth. It is a model based on just what we can observe, not burdened with mysticism, fantasy, hypothetical dimensions, belief in paradoxes or contradictions, mechanistic contrivances, or mathematics substituted for reality. Beginning with the rediscovery of a single fixed relativistic frame of reference, the electromagnetic ether, it ends with the resolution or dismissal of the paradoxes and contradictions of the current "standard models" of physics and cosmology and their replacement with a new and simplified model. Along the way this account provides new insights into the commonly accepted belief systems around relativity, particle theory, quantum theory, the second law of thermodynamics, E=mc2, and the velocity of light, and offers a simplified, rational, and reality-based alternative using the same body of evidence whose misattribution or misuse has been claimed to support current incomplete and contradictory theories for the past 100 years.