Quark Epoch

During the Quark Epoch the strong force and soon after the electromagnetic force breaks off from the super force; which just leaves the weak force as the last force. It was also during this time that the temperature of the universe dropped below 10^13k which signifies that protons and neutrons could no longer be produced in pairs. Ends around 10^-4 seconds after the big bang

Lepton Epoch

During this time the universe was still hot enough for leptons to be produced in pairs, compared to protons and neutrons, leptons have less mass and are thus still able to be produced in pairs while in a cooler universe. Lepton pair production would cease when the universe would drop below one billion kelvin which would be around 10^2 seconds after the big bang.

Before matter could form the universe was energetic and particles would appear with their anti particle partner (ie electrons-positrons) and would destroy each other and become energy again, however, because of some unknown mechanism at this point the universe favored regular matter and the universe had more matter than anti matter particles. "1 billion and 1 protons for each 1 billion anti-protons" (web.njit.edu).

Nuclear Epoch

Matter begins to form once the temperature of the universe has cooled enough for protons and neutrons to combine and create nuclei. This is referred to as Nucleosynthesis, however, at this point in time the nuclei were not yet neutral because the universe was full of photons that would keep exciting electrons, these electrons were all over space (like a sea of electrons) and would also interact with photons which would have given the universe and opaque look.

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