Ok, so this question comes up and I'm not sure where to go with it, so here it is:
We have analyzed the evidence of the big bang back to milliseconds after creation. Since energy and mass are interchangeable, the early universe is essentially a hot, dense, rapidly expanding 'ball' of pure energy. But where was gravity in all this? Given the density, the early universe would have been the equivalent of the mother of all black holes. So how did the expansion continue?
My answer was that it remained energy (ie massless photons) until the expansion allowed cooling to the level that allowed mass to form, at which point gravity could no longer take over. Any other thoughts would be appreciated.
We have analyzed the evidence of the big bang back to milliseconds after creation. Since energy and mass are interchangeable, the early universe is essentially a hot, dense, rapidly expanding 'ball' of pure energy. But where was gravity in all this? Given the density, the early universe would have been the equivalent of the mother of all black holes. So how did the expansion continue?
My answer was that it remained energy (ie massless photons) until the expansion allowed cooling to the level that allowed mass to form, at which point gravity could no longer take over. Any other thoughts would be appreciated.