Proton: a life story    by Geraint F. Lewis       10 35 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!...
 
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