Conversation topic submitted by Ching Lun T, Maths and Science tutor, Tutorful
GCSE Physics teaches us that in the beginning, there was a Big Bang – and for hundreds of thousands of years, the only atoms in existence were hydrogen and helium, the lightest elements in our periodic table.
Stars eventually formed when these atoms came together and within stars, fusion occurs, where lighter elements fuse together to form heavier ones such as carbon and release tremendous amounts of light and heat energy.
These stars eventually met their demise when trying to fuse iron and became supernovae – exploding with tremendous amount of energy, enough energy to fuse even heavier elements to create some truly wonderful elements such as gold – some of which ended up in our neck of the woods, settling down into the planet as it formed, to be dug up billions of years later and purified and made into beautiful gold jewellery which you may well be wearing as you read this and also becoming essential ingredients of the circuits inside our smartphones!
