(March 2, 2018 at 3:53 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote:(March 2, 2018 at 2:51 pm)Rhondazvous Wrote: And this explains why although photons existed before recombination, there was no matter and therefore no gravity to counter the dark energy pushing everything apart. only after things got so apart that they lost energy was the strong force able to bring quanta together to form atoms and then large bodies with measurable gravity.
I don’t believe that is accurate for two reasons:
1. Recombination refers to electrons pairing up with protons. They existed separately as ionized plasma before. So there were matter before recombination, just not electrically neutral matter.
2. Even if there were not electrons and protons, If there were photons, there were gravity. Gravity is an artifact of energy in all forms, not just in matter form. If I am not mistaken, most of the gravity of normal matter is not from the rest mass of the particles with rest mass, but from binding energy that holds These particles together.
Yes, that is correct. For example, most of the mass of the proton is due to the binding energy of the quarks and gluons (the mediators of the strong force). As far as we know, the gluons are massless and the up and down quark have very little mass.
