this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023
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ELI5
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Explain it to me like I am 5. Everybody should know what this is about.
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Space is currently at approximately NEGATIVE 270 Celsius. The last time that the general temperature of the universe was zero Celsius it was probably some short (cosmologically speaking) time after the Big Bang and consisted of some sort of hypothetical gluon/plasma/quark/condensate. All matter as humans understand it is gone in a practical instant.
Are you trying to say that all matter was in its building block shape when the general temperature was 0 celsius?
And when that material touches us, we'd become same stuff and stopped existing as we are now (evaporate).
Don't take my opinions too seriously, I'm just referencing my Astronomy notes (of which come from a single semester of a single class). With that said, here's my 2¢ guess:
I think they're trying to say that the last time the universe as a whole was 0°C, was probably before the formation of matter in the universe (I'll guess the inflation era, just after the birth of the universe, somewhere 10^(-35 to -33) seconds).
At this point in the universe, atoms cannot form (as the nuclear forces binding atoms are overwhelmed by the gravitational forces of all the energy in the Universe — you ever crush a cracker? It'd probably be like that). Perhaps even sub-atomic particles (protons, neutrons, etc.) can't form. All that's there is sub-sub-atomic particles (which we don't know much about, from my understanding).
So basically we (and the world, etc.) would be ripped apart at the sub-sub-atomic level by the immense forces (gravitational, etc. — remember, all of the matter/energy in the universe is being concentrated in a small place) of the early universe.
So, it's not that we would necessarily evaporate, nor that touching sub-sub-atomic matter would kill us, but more-so that we'd be crushed, at the sub-sub-atomic level, by the gravitational forces of the early universe. It'd probably be painless though, at least.