• Question: How was the first atom created?

    Asked by brizzybabber to Alexis, Dr D, Helen, Jasmine, Mario on 17 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Alexis Barr

      Alexis Barr answered on 17 Jun 2013:

      I don’t think anyone really knows! All I can say is that the first atom was most likely a Hydrogen atom.

    • Photo: Andrew Devitt

      Andrew Devitt answered on 23 Jun 2013:

      Atoms are created by sub-atomic particles combining. At some point after the big bang I suppose that protons, neutrons and electrons could come together to form atoms. I’m afraid I don’t understand better than that.

    • Photo: Jasmine Penny

      Jasmine Penny answered on 26 Jun 2013:

      Like Andrew and Alexis, this isn’t really my area of expertise but I thought I would try and find out some information about it! So atoms are the basic building blocks that make up everyday things. Each atom contains protons, neutrons and electrons. As we know (or think we know), everything began with the big bang. When the big bang happened, the universe was extremely hot. When the world was a few minutes old, it had cooled down enough for protons and neutrons to come together to form simple groups. These groups contained between one and four particles, forming hydrogen (one proton), deuterium (one proton and one neutron), tritium (one proton and two neutrons), and helium (two protons and two neutrons).

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