The Big Bang Never Happened

IMPLICATIONSBang. The Big Bang is the golden age of perfect symmetry andultrahigh energy. In the beginning was symmetry, fundamentalphysicists assume: all the particles and the forces were one, butas the Big Bang cooled in the first instants of time, asymmetryspontaneously occurred. First gravity separated out as a distinctforce, then the strong nuclear force, and finally the weak nuclearforce and electromagnetism. All this occurred in a tiny fraction ofa second (Table 8.3). Similarly, in the beginning all particleswere identical in mass and other qualities—now they're all different.This concept of asymmetry's origin is obviously very differentfrom Prigogine's theory. He hypothesizes that asymmetries ariseas energy flows increase—and, moreover, that they are progres-TABLE 8.3HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSEACCORDING TO THE BIG BANG340