>>11650735Now, The Big Bang Theory suggests that once the entire universe was compacted into an infinitely small speck at the beginning of time. But was this really the case? What parts of this theory are still under serious question? Direct and convincing evidence tells us that the universe was once much smaller, hotter, and denser
than it is now. We're actually pretty sure we know what happened all the way down to approximately 10^-32 of a single second after the hypothetical beginning of time. And at that point, the entire observable universe was around the size of a grain of sand. Now, we got down to that size by rewinding the laws of physics, and in particular running the math of Einstein's general theory of relativity backwards. But how much further can we rewind until we run into trouble?
Well, things get pretty weird before that 10^-32 seconds. Now, remember, when the universe was younger than 400,000 years it was too hot for atoms to exist. Well, before 10 to the minus 32 seconds, it was too hot for the fundamental forces of nature as we know them to exist. The Higgs field gives particles mass. Well, at temperatures above 10^15,
01:48 or a quadrillion Kelvin, it stops doing that. It turns out that when you take this Higgs mass away from the particles that carry the weak nuclear force, they become just like the photon, which itself carries the electromagnetic force. This means that the weak and electromagnetic forces sort of merge into the one electroweak force. For a very brief period soon after the beginning of time, these forces are combined. It's called the electroweak era.
