To my understanding, at the very beginning there was the big bang when nothing (or everything?) existed in singularity, and then at some early point hydrogen came to existence. I understand how stars churn with gravity and heat and whatnot those bigger atoms such as iron at later stages of the universe. But how and why did hydrogen happen as the first atom, and why didn’t we have, say, uranium straight from the beginning?
In: Physics
In nature, we usually do not see atoms spontaneously combine; there are forces that repel subatomic particles, so complex atoms like uranium can only be formed in locations that overcome those repelling forces (like supernovae).
But hydrogen doesn’t need to overcome those forces. It’s just one proton and one electron, which are attracted by electromagnetism. So more complex atoms needed something like a star or supernova to form, while hydrogen did not – thus, all hydrogen at the start.
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