What is the Planck epoch?
Q: What is the Planck epoch?
A: The Planck epoch is the earliest period of time in the history of the universe, from zero to approximately 10⁻⁴³ seconds.
Q: What is the Planck scale?
A: The Planck scale is the physical scale beyond which current physical theories may not apply and cannot be used to calculate what happened.
Q: What were some physical quantities during the Planck epoch?
A: During the Planck epoch, every physical quantity, like temperature and energies, were in the range of Planck unit values.
Q: What was the condition of the universe during the Planck epoch?
A: During the Planck epoch, the temperature and average energies within the universe were so high that even subatomic particles could not form, and the four fundamental forces that shape our universe were combined and formed one unified fundamental force.
Q: What is the traditional Big Bang cosmology's prediction of the Planck epoch?
A: Traditional Big Bang cosmology predicts a gravitational singularity before this time, but this theory relies on the theory of general relativity, which is thought to break down for this epoch due to quantum effects.
Q: What dominated cosmology and physics during the Planck epoch?
A: Due to the extraordinarily small scale of the universe at that time, the quantum effects of gravity were the strongest, and it is believed that cosmology and physics were dominated by the quantum effects of gravity.
Q: What happened after the Planck epoch?
A: The immeasurably hot and dense state of the Planck epoch was succeeded by the grand unification epoch, where the gravitation force is separated from the unified fundamental force.
