We know how to calculate how many quarks were present in the early universe and how this quantity changed as our universe expanded and cooled. We can also calculate when these quarks coalesced in groups of three, to form the first protons and neutrons. This should not be a hard problem. Yet it is. When we carry out these calculations, we find that they simply do not predict that a universe like ours—one full of atoms—should have emerged from the Big Bang. Instead, they tell us that very few quarks and very few electrons should have survived these first moments. According to the math, the world
...more
