In the beginning there was one force

[CaptainHammer]

Hi everyone, new guy here.

I am currently writing a short essay on the beginning of the universe. I chose not to put this in the Homework section mainly because it does not fit the template, and I think that it's an interesting discussion. More interesting than a simple homework.
My essay will have a strong emphasis on inflation and nucleosynthesis.

But that is not the topic.

I am more interested in the first three epochs. Planck, GUT and electroweak. The question that I bring to you all is, what does it mean that the fundamental forces were unified?

Were the gauge bosons equivalent to one another? If so, what about gravity?
Were the forces mediated by a single kind of boson that "degenerated" as forces separated?

 

[mfb]

I am more interested in the first three epochs. Planck, GUT and electroweak. The question that I bring to you all is, what does it mean that the fundamental forces were unified?

There was (probably) one more general, more fundamental force. What we see today are (probably) different aspects of the same force, like electric and magnetic field are different aspects of the more general electromagnetism (imagine we wouldn't see the influences of those fields on each other, then we would treat it as two different forces).

Were the gauge bosons equivalent to one another?

They were different.

If so, what about gravity?

Find the answer and you'll get a Nobel Prize.

Were the forces mediated by a single kind of boson that "degenerated" as forces separated?

Probably more than one boson.