ylemät

Ylemät is a hypothetical primal substance or material from which all physical matter is believed to originate. The term was coined by physicist George Gamow in the early 1940s as a playful expansion of the Greek letter omega (Ω), representing the end of the universe, and "ylem," a concept of primordial matter from ancient Greek philosophy. Gamow envisioned ylem as the dense, hot, and uniform state of matter that existed before the Big Bang.

According to the Big Bang theory, the universe began as an incredibly hot and dense singularity. As this singularity expanded and cooled, the fundamental particles, such as quarks and leptons, began to form. These particles then aggregated to create protons and neutrons, which eventually combined to form atomic nuclei. Through a process known as nucleosynthesis, these nuclei fused to create the lighter elements, primarily hydrogen and helium. These elements then clustered under gravity to form stars and galaxies, and through stellar nucleosynthesis within stars, heavier elements were created.

The concept of ylem is largely a linguistic and conceptual tool used to describe the earliest, undifferentiated state of the universe before the emergence of distinct particles and forces as we understand them. It represents the ultimate origin point from which all subsequent cosmic evolution has taken place. While not a scientifically defined entity with measurable properties, ylem serves as a placeholder for the unknown conditions of the universe at its absolute beginning.