Let's talk a little about the small particles (elemental particles) which are central to this part of the story, and then we'll look at the universe when the first matter started to appear.

Elemental Particle

An elementary particle is an element of matter that cannot be made any smaller. All matter is formed from such elemental particles. As far as we know, elementary particles are, electrons, muon; m particle, tauon; t particle, and quarks and leptons that consist of few neutrinos.

Quark

If you make matter smaller and smaller, it becomes a molecule, an atom, and then an electron and an atomic nucleus. Electrons cannot be made any smaller than this, but the atomic nucleus exists from protons and neutrons. If we give them a very fast velocity and make them crash into each other to make them smaller, they reach a condition very minute, called a "quark." So far, 6 quarks have been recognized:

• u - Up quark
• d - Down quark
• c - Charm quark
• s - Strange quark
• t - Top quark
• b - Bottom quark

For example, a proton is made of 2 up quarks and 1 down quark. And these quarks join by exchanging particles called "gluons." (The strong force, explained in "The Four Forces" section, is a force that works on these quarks.)
To the animation of Quark made with Java.

Soup-like Universe

Crashing of light (light->particles)

Before matter appeared, the universe was filled with light. That high-energy light had the ability to form, a pair of particles that form the present world, and it had the "anti-particles" that have the opposite charge to the particles.

"Energy and mass have equal values." Einstein once said, energy is capable of becoming mass by changing shape. This means that if there is enough energy to change into the equivalent mass, that energy can become matter.

Crashing of particles(particles->light)

( On the contrary, vigorous proton and anti-proton crashed into each other to become energy.)

In this way, pairs of one particle and one anti-particle were produced due to the active crashing of light. Such pairs included, quark and anti-quark, and electron and positron. The relation of particle and light at this time was different from now. Particles and light reacted vigorously, and its condition was like some thick soup.

In order to know more about soup-like universe, you need to know what light is.

Light

When particles with electric charges (protons and electrons) vibrate, the energy moves in the universe in the shape of a wave. This is called the electromagnetic wave, and the familiar electric wave is a kind of this electromagnetic wave. Light (visible light) is one form of this electromagnetic wave too. An electric wave is a wave that vibrates 10 billion times per second or less, and light is a wave that vibrates 100 trillion times per second.

The energy of an electromagnetic wave comes from wave action of the particle's vibration, so when the frequency of the particles (frequency of the wave) increases, the energy also increases. In one second, a vibration of 10 billion times is less than the vibration of 100 trillion times. Light contains more energy than an electric wave.

When there is more and more energy, the wave's frequency increases, and the wavelength decreases. Every electromagnetic wave travels at same speed of 300 thousand kilometers per second, so distance traveled by every wave in a second is 300 thousand kilometers. Within a same distance, the wave that vibrates more travels finely than the wave that only vibrates few times. Therefore, the wave with more number of vibrations has finer waves, with short wavelength and high energy.

We told you that the electromagnetic wave is elongating (red shift) according to the expansion of universe. That means that in the early universe, the wavelength was shorter than now. If the wavelength was short, it means there were more vibrations, which results in a higher amount of energy. The early universe was filled with light of high energy.

Thermal Equilibrium Condition

Let's go back to the explanation of universe.

Particles such as protons, neutrons, and electrons were moving actively in the universe after they were formed, and that universe was filled with a great amount of light with high energy. The light and particles were moving around vigorously, crashing into each other many times. When the light with high energy crashed into a particle of low energy, the energy was transferred from the high energy light to the lower energy particle, and their energies became of equal value.

Oppositely, if the particle had a higher energy, the energy transferred from the particle to the light. Energy transfers from high to low and tries to be equal. For example, if you place a hot water for a while it gradually cools down. This is because the energy from the high temperature water moves to the atmospheric air of lower temperature.

So, the particles and light in universe crashed into each other and gave energy to the lower one. This means that every light and every particle had the same amount of energy. Such condition is called the thermal equilibrium condition. All particles in this sense are particles and anti-particles.

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