How are minerals connected to the Big Bang?

Minerals are connected to the Big Bang in the same way you and (almost) everything else is. To understand this connection, we simply need to understand what the Big Bang theory is.The Big Bang theory is a cosmological model of the universe. It is a theory that tries to describe our universe in its early ages, and this includes an answer to some very interesting questions: how matter came into existence, how atoms came together, how stars formed, and so on. Since the universe seems to be around 14 billion years old, it is very hard to test any model like the Big Bang. The best we can do is look at how our universe looks today and guess how it looked in the past.Now a mineral is a "thing" made out of atoms that follows some criteria—the atoms must be ordered in an atomic arrangement, they must be formed by natural processes, they must be a solid at some certain temperature and pressure, and so on. For our discussion, the most important aspect of a mineral is that it is made of atoms (or molecules), and the Big Bang is a model that gives an explanation of how atoms came into existence!So the physical connection between the Big Bang theory and minerals is very trivial. Almost everything that exists can be connected to the Big Bang. Minerals are a little bit more interesting because, due to their very basic structure, you can find them almost everywhere in the universe. You can find them in asteroids, nebulae, planets, and so on. Thanks to their large presence, the study of minerals can give us information about how matter around the universe evolved, contributing to our understanding of the so-called Big Bang theory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral


Minerals are connected to the Big Bang both directly, in a physical sense, as well as metaphorically, as an analogy to understand how solid matter "crystalized" out of pure energy over time.
The direct connection between minerals and the Big Bang Theory relies on the understanding that minerals are specific arrangements and compositions of specific types of solid matter--elements, compounds and mixtures--and the Big Bang Theory explains is where all matter in the universe originated--a long, slow cooling of pure energy that expanded from a singularity in space-time.
Metaphorically, minerals can help us understand what the Big Bang Theory describes, especially as the moniker (name) "Big Bang" is a poor description of what the Theory actually states. The Big Bang has also been referred to as the "Slow Freeze" -- rather than a bright, loud "Bang", there was actually no light, and no matter to carry sound waves, for the first several hundred "years" after the big bang (remember, our idea of a year is based on earth's journey around the sun, and neither of those objects existed at the time of the big bang). As the universe expanded, creating time and space as it grew, the extreme energy of the singularity slowed down, forming quarks and gluons, then protons and neutrons and finally atoms -- mostly Hydrogen gas. Over billions of years, through a variety of chemical processes such as nuclear fusion in stars and supernova explosions, all of the elements were formed, and as they slow down and cool off (Kinetic Molecular Theory explains that relationship), they "crystalize" into metals, ice, and minerals.
Therefore, the big bang theory explains the origins of the atoms and molecules which make up minerals today, but the big bang theory itself also explains a sort of "crystalization" of the universe in a process similar to the formation of minerals on earth.
This first reference has a good description of an attempt to study the universe as geologists study a crystal: https://phys.org/news/2012-08-big-theory-chill.html
https://sciencing.com/how-minerals-formed-4619330.html
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/life-and-rocks-may-have-co-evolved-on-earth-180957807/
http://www.medicaldaily.com/big-bang-was-actually-big-freeze-say-scientists-242129
https://www.space.com/17217-big-bang-phase-change-theory.html

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