There's more to the story than just a bang

2) The Inflation

In less than an instant, the hyper-dense speck of a universe inflated from a size smaller than a proton into something just slightly larger than a watermelon. It was a magical transformation. The rush of this exponential expansion also caused it to get slightly less incredibly hot, but only for a moment.

After the universe had scaled up to the equivalent dimensions of a large fruit, it took a short pause. The inflation was over, but there was a tremendous amount of spare energy that found it could do no more inflating. So the energy turned inwards and made the transformed universe hotter than it had ever been before, or has been since, or ever will be.

If you break up matter you get a release of energy. For example, when you burn a log (which is made of matter), heat (which is a form of energy) is given out. Since energy can be released from matter, it follows that matter can be made from energy, if there is enough of it. It was the incredible energy at the end of inflation that pressurised, condensed, and crystallised the first constituents of matter into being, and thus gave birth to the fundamental building blocks of existence.

Next: The Inflation

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