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Grounds that it had not fully aware of this, I may do a mysterious, and may not know, the kind of elementary particles exist in the original fog, did not happen. It may have been slightly more than a small group spontaneously formed particles stirred up the quantum movement, and formed a small seed of the original structure, like steam from the seeds of dust so as to form rain drops than the Kansas plains. But it is not enough to a gravity work. Uncheckable and invincible by the power of focus, and some fog started to crumble, a huge cloud.           Out of the Fog     Ten million years after the big bang, a mist of particles filled the universe. A thin fog permeated space, containing only the lightest of atomic elements, mostly hydrogen and some helium gas. There were also a few species of elementary particles, remnants of the ferocious instant of creation, roaming freely through space. It was dark and becoming cold, lit by only a faint infrared glow—the relic radiation of the big bang, like the glow of the cooling ashes of a dead fire. By its ten millionth anniversary, the universe appeared to be dying.   The universe contained no materials out of which to make solid objects. It would appear that there could never be things, such as seashells, trees, icebergs, statues of David, freeways, guitar strings, feathers, brains, stone implements, or paper on which to compose an original Bach cantata. Indeed, there could be no rocks, or sand, or water, or a breathable planetary atmosphere, much less a planet. No solids could possibly form out of the diffuse gases or the fleeting elementary particles, adrift and marooned within the immensity of space. At ten million years, a very short time for a planet, or even for an entire species of life on Earth, the universe was thus formless, cold, dark, and, apparently, just fading away.   For reasons that are not yet fully understood today, perhaps having to do with one of the mysterious, perhaps as yet unknown, species of elementary particles present in the primordial fog, something did happen. It may have been little more than the spontaneous formation of small clumps of particles, stirred by quantum motion, forming tiny primordial seeds of structure, like the seeds of dust that cause water vapor to coalesce into drops of rain over the plains of Kansas. But it was enough to set gravity to work. By the uncheckable and invincible force of gravity, parts of the mist began to collapse into gigantic clouds. The great hydrogen clouds began to swirl and roil, like massive thunderheads. The gravity-fed collapse became more intense. Within a few hundred million years, a complete transformation of the formless mist had occurred. Large, primitive, blob-shaped galaxies, each containing billions of faint and youthful stars, began to shine. The universe began to bloom.   These first stars were the parents and grandparents of everything to come. Some were barely more than enormous soft balls of hot hydrogen gas, hardly able to glow. Others became superstars, enormous brilliant spheres, hundreds of times as massive as the Sun, shining radiantly blue as they savagely devoured their primordial fuel of hydrogen and helium. Deep within the cores of these titanic stars, heavier atoms formed, built up from the hydrogen and helium fuel through the process of nuclear fusion.   The extreme pressures and temperatures found deep within the interiors of stars foster the process of nuclear fusion. The joining together, or fusion, of atomic nuclei, makes heavier atomic nuclei. A pair of helium nuclei squeezed together make a beryllium nucleus; add another helium nucleus, and a carbon nucleus is created; a carbon nucleus plus a helium nucleus yields an oxygen nucleus; and so forth. This process produces the energy that fuels the star, causing it to shine brilliantly, emanating its intense radiation of light into the dark void of the universe.             — Leon M. Lederman, C. T. Hill, Symmetry and the Beautiful Universe                 Indexes/13