Ok, Details...so fire, or intense heat kills atoms then. So my cardboard matchbox fell apart and turned to ash because the fire incinerated all the atoms that were holding it together? Does that mean that ashes do not contain atoms, or does it mean that they become different atoms altogether. You said that first there were elementary particles, and as they cooled atoms began to form. So the particles were not made up of atoms? Or did you mean that they were very simple atoms and became more complex atoms as everything cooled down. Your answers are great by the way. I am enjoying the education.
Extreme heat or pressure kills atoms. But, just like chlorine and salt are very, very different creatures, a chemical transformation can break or rearrange molecular bonds. The ashes contain atoms.
I'm bad on terminology, so please forgive me here.
We start with molecules- they can be big or small, and they have their own properties that vary quite a bit, regardless of how similar their chemical (AKA element or atom) makeup is. Chlorine may be a part of a deadly gas, or a part of a salt crystal. Molecules can be broken down by adding the right chemicals or energy (fire).
Atoms are the next level down. They are not easily broken apart - a carbon atom remains a carbon atom. Their type is determined by the number of protons. They will have an equal number of electrons, and a similar number of neutrons. Protons have a positive charge, electrons have a negative one - when they are balanced, the atom has a neutral charge, when electrons get suctioned away one way or another, the atom becomes positively charged, and tries to capture more electrons. Neutrons are neutral, but contain the same mass (approx) as a protron. Electrons are very lightweight.
However, protrons, netrons and electrons are also composed of smaller particles - and those are composed of smaller still particles (IIRC - college physics was awhile ago).
So, at the start of the big bang is a ton of energy and matter, unimagineably hot. It cools enough (still unimaginabely hot) for some of the building blocks of protrons etc. to be made. Then it cools a little more, and protrons, neutrons, electrons form from combinations of the more exotic particles, which means that atoms form, and reform - heat is energy, which means the atoms are moving around very fast, which means they can fracture apart - this is at temperatures that you might see in the sun, not a fire from a match, nor from a bonfire. Things cool more, and the simple atoms are everywhere. They accumulate randomly a little, that creates gravity, which pulls together more atoms (simple stuff - hydrogen, helium), and so on - until the gravity is pulling them close enough the pressure begins to cause more combinations, and heat - atoms may recombine to form heavier elements, due to heat and pressure. As things cool - as on a planet, atoms are more stable.
So, when we see something transform, whether through fire burning something up, water dissolving salt, cold creating ice from water - it's not atoms being broken apart, just the structure of molecules changing.
:blowkiss:
