Proton: a life story by Geraint F. Lewis
1035 years: I’ve lived a long and eventful life, but I
know that death is almost upon me. Around me, my kind are slowly melting into
the darkness that is now the universe, and my time will eventually come.
I’ve lived a long and
eventful life…
10-43 seconds: A time of unbelievable light, unbelievable
heat! I don’t remember the time before I was born, but I was there,
disembodied, ethereal, part of the swirling, roaring fires of the universe coming
in to being.
But the universe cooled. From the featureless
inferno, its character crystalized into a seething sea of particles and forces.
Electrons and quarks tore about, smashing and crashing into photons and
neutrinos. The universe continued to cool.
1 second: The intensity of the heat steadily died away, and I was born. In
truth, there was no precise moment of my birth, but as the universe cooled my
innards, free quarks, bound together, and I was suddenly there! A proton!
But my existence seemed fleet…
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