Abstract
At times from around \(10^{-2}\) s through the first several minutes after the Big Bang, the temperature passed through the range from around 10 to below \(10^{-1}\) MeV. During this period protons and neutrons combined to produce a significant amount of \(^4\mathrm{He}\)—one quarter of the universe’s nuclei by mass—plus smaller amounts of deuterium (D, i.e., \(^2\mathrm{H}\)), tritium (\(^3\mathrm{H}\)), \(^3\mathrm{He}\), \(^6\mathrm{Li}\), \(^7\mathrm{Li}\), and\(^7\mathrm{Be}\).
Evolution of nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation because evolution presupposes the creation of beings which evolve. The Big Bang, which is today posited as the origin of the world, does not contradict the divine act of creation; rather, it requires it.
Pope Francis
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Notes
- 1.
In the following the natural constants c, \(\hbar \), and k are set to unity.
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Grupen, C. (2020). Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. In: Astroparticle Physics. Undergraduate Texts in Physics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27339-2_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27339-2_10
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