“Right. But these strings formed naturally. They are remnants of the phase transitions of the early Universe, remnants left over after the decomposition of the GUT unified super-force which came out of the singularity... Cosmic strings are residual traces of the ultrahigh, symmetric vacuum of the GUT epoch, embedded in the ‘empty space’ of our Universe—like residual lines of liquid water in solid ice. And the strings are superconducting; as they move through the primordial magnetic fields, huge currents of a hundred billion billion amps or more—are induced in the strings...”
The strings writhed, like slow, interconnected snakes, across space. The particles of mist, representing the uniform matter distribution, began to drift toward the strings. They coalesced in narrow columns around the strings, and in thin sheets in the wake of the strings.
“It’s beautiful,” Spinner said.
“The strings are moving at close to lightspeed,” Louise said. “They leave behind them flat wakes—planes toward which matter is attracted, at several miles a second. Structure starts to form in the wakes, so we get a pattern of threads and sheets of baryonic matter surrounding voids...” Now the baryonic matter, coalescing around the string structure, imploded under its own gravity. Tiny Virtual galaxies—charming, gem-like—twinkled to life, threaded along the webbing of cosmic string.
-Ring, Ch. 24