In the beginning, or at least following the Big Bang more than 14 billion years ago, there was hydrogen, some helium and a little bit of lithium. A grand total of three elements.
Today, there are nearly 100 known naturally occurring elements, with hundreds of variants.
Figuring out how the universe went from three elements to 100 is the focus of new research being led by a Michigan State University physicist and funded by a five-year, $11.4 million grant from the National Science Foundation.
