After the Big bang ,when did the first atoms form?

[Monsterboy]

After the big bang ,how long did it take for atoms to be formed? how long did it take for the elementary/fundamental particles to come together and form atoms?did atoms formed instantly after the big bang? first atoms were hydrogen right?

 

[phinds]

After the big bang ,how long did it take for atoms to be formed? how long did it take for the elementary/fundamental particles to come together and form atoms?did atoms formed instantly after the big bang? first atoms were hydrogen right?

about 3 minutes.

EDIT: by the way, you should learn to use Google; it would have pointed you to not only the answer but some discussion.

 

[Monsterboy]

about 3 minutes.

EDIT: by the way, you should learn to use Google; it would have pointed you to not only the answer but some discussion.

hmm..you are right about the google part...it's given that recombination happened 300,000 years after the big bang http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_the_universe
So during photon epoch almost all the leptons annihilated ,so very few nuclei could capture electrons and become electrically neutral atoms ,then right? so the universe is mostly ionic?

 

[phinds]

hmm..you are right about the google part...it's given that recombination happened 300,000 years after the big bang http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_the_universe
So during photon epoch almost all the leptons annihilated ,so very few nuclei could capture electrons and become electrically neutral atoms ,then right? so the universe is mostly ionic?

Yeah, you're right. I forgot that it was only the nucleus of the atoms that formed at 3 minutes.

 

[twofish-quant]

So during photon epoch almost all the leptons annihilated ,so very few nuclei could capture electrons and become electrically neutral atoms ,then right? so the universe is mostly ionic?

During the photon era, there were electrons. It's just that when you heat hydrogen to 3000K, the protons and electrons ionize.

At 300,000 years, atoms formed. Then about a billion years later, when you had the first stars, the star light caused most of the gas in the universe to ionize again.