ORMATION OF THE UNIVERSE>THE FIRST MILLISECOND>THE DENSITY OF THE UNIVERSE The ultimate instant that physics allows us to speculate

about takes us back eve n closer to the big bang. Imagine a moment so early and a density so high that t he gravitational stresses were capable of tearing apart the vacuum. At a later e ra, the nuclear and electromagnetic forces created pairs of elementary particles . If gravitational forces were sufficiently great, they also would have been cap able of creating pairs of particles from the vacuum. In other words, at the mome nt of singularity, space-time was essentially disrupted by the gravitational for ces. To estimate the earliest instant that is amenable to our study, we must make use of the modern theory of physics of the ultimate structure of matter, quantum me chanics. According to Heisenberg s uncertainty principle, we can never precisely p inpoint the location of any elementary particle. Atomic nuclei and electrons los e their individual identity and acquire a wavelike nature on a scale known as th e Compton wavelength. We can no longer locate elementary particles at a particul ar point of space; now we can locate them only in a particular region, and indiv idual particles become indistinguishable. The dimension of this region of uncert ainty is the wavelength of the particle. The larger the mass, the smaller the wa velength. Even macroscopic objects possess their wavelength of uncertainty: you, the computer, may spontaneously go through the floor, given a long enough perio d of time, a time that is much longer than the age of the universe. An elementar y particle, however, manifests this uncertainty on a very short time scale. Let us now consider an era so early that the entire observable universe was cont ained within its own Compton wavelength. This is the ultimate limit of our theor y of gravity, where uncertainty reigns supreme. At this instant, known as the Pl anck time, only 10-43 second after the singularity, all the matter we now see in the universe, comprising some millions of galaxies, was compressed within a sph ere of radius equal to one-hundredth of a centimeter, the size of the point of a needle. At this moment, the extent of the universe visible to any hypothetical observer was only 10-33 centimeter in diameter, far smaller even than an atomic nucleus. If all the atoms in the present stars and galaxies were spread uniformly through out space, there would be about one atom of hydrogen per cubic meter of space. I n addition, there would be perhaps one-tenth as much helium. All the heavier ato ms collectively amount to less than 1 percent of the number of hydrogen atoms. I n the early universe, the density was very much higher. One second after the bang, the density had dropped to 10 kilograms per cubic cen timeter. (Ordinary rocks have a density of a few grams per cubic centimeter.) At the Planck time, the density approached 1090 kilograms per cubic centimeter. Th ese physical conditions are so extreme that it seems entirely appropriate to reg ard the Planck time as the moment of creation of the univers