Quote Originally Posted by mojo
What I understand about symmetry breaking is that as things get colder, the randomness of the particles lessens, and patterns can emerge.
This has a name, doesn't it? Entropy?

One part that is up for debate is when, exactly, the electroweak epoch happened. Some hypotheses place is as early as 10^-36 s after the big bang, while others place it at 10^-12 s after the big bang.
This is why I was curious about the behaviour of light in the EW epoch. I mean honestly, it seems ludicrous to use the word "epoch" to refer to a period of time so infintesimal that we can't even begin to comprehend how quick that is to us. How far does light travel in that time? It's like the entire era that was the electroweak epoch had started and was over before light could travel a nanometer. I really can't get my head around how so much can happen in such a short amount of time. How many high energy collisions can a particle experience in a nanosecond in the most insanely dense environment one cannot even begin to imagine?

My head is melting.