This collision lasted for a full 15 years. Amidst the light of approximately 330 million black holes annihilating, Tom gradually glimpsed the truth of the universe, extremely subtle yet significant, hidden behind the macroscopic background.
He gradually realized that what caused the gravitons to turn from virtual to real was not the environment created by the annihilation of black holes, but rather the extremely high energy level of this environment, which created conditions similar to those that existed a few hundred billionths of a second after the Big Bang.
At that time, symmetry breaking had not yet occurred. All four fundamental forces, including gravity, were still unified.
Afterward, symmetry breaking occurred, and gravity separated first, becoming an independent force.
And, it was only during that extremely short process of just separating that gravitons possessed the characteristics of real particles and could be observed.
