3) Plasma Soup & The Four Forces
The entire universe was at this point a dense, white-hot soup that flowed in a frictionless way. It was made up of elementary particles and incredible amounts of energy, and is known as the Quark-Gluon Plasma. A short while after it was formed, the plasma grew, and stretched, and as it stretched, it ever so slightly cooled. (‘cooled’ is perhaps not a very good word for something that has gone from being unbelievably incredibly very very hot to just unbelievably incredibly very hot, but its the best we’ve got at the moment).
This change in conditions allowed the final split of the Grand Unification to take place.
The ElectroMagnetic Force broke away from the Weak Force,
leaving us with the Four Fundamental Forces that are still in operation today. In their own separate ways, the forces act on the big, the tiny, those that need to change and those that need energy. Together, they choreograph the dance of everything in the universe.
We know the ElectroMagnetic force best when it appears to us as
heat, light and electricity. It is the ultimate messenger, as it has the ability to carry information at light-speeds over limitless distances. As well as travelling in relatively straight lines, it can also work like a field. There is an electric field – like a web – that fills the large spaces between atoms, which means that when you put your hand on a table you don’t go right through it. There is also a magnetic field around our planet created by the molten spinning core of the Earth that interacts with and protects us from the more severe electromagnetic emissions of the sun. When this battle between solar radiation and magnetic protection comes within the boundaries of our atmosphere, we can see their interaction as glowing spirits in the sky, which are also known as the Northern Lights.
The Weak Force (which we would like to suggest should be called the Muto Force) is more obscure, but no less important. Like the
Strong Force, it works on a subatomic scale, but instead of
bringing matter together, it is responsible for its decay. It is this natural process which that powers the fusion reactions in all stars, of which our sun is one. It can also change the qualities of Quarks, which is the reason why we live in a world full of stable forms of matter instead of all the strange and unstable forms that get created in extreme astronomical events.
