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In particle physics, the electroweak interaction is the unified description of two of the four known fundamental interactions of nature: electromagnetism and the weak interaction. Although these two forces appear very different at everyday low energies, the theory models them as two different aspects of the same force. Above the unification energy, on the order of 100 GeV, they would merge into a single electroweak force. Thus if the universe is hot enough (approximately 1015 K, a temperature exceeded until shortly after the Big Bang) then the electromagnetic force and weak force will merge into a combined electroweak force.
At this point approximately 13.7 billion years ago the force of gravity was as strong as the other fundamental forces, which means that all the forces were unified. Inconceivably hot and dense, the state of the universe during the Planck epoch was unstable or transitory, tending to evolve, giving rise to the familiar manifestations of the fundamental forces through a process known as symmetry breaking. Modern cosmology now says that the Planck epoch may have inaugurated a period of unification or Grand unification epoch, and that symmetry breaking then quickly led to the era of cosmic inflation, the Inflationary epoch, during which the universe greatly expanded in scale over a very short period of time.[1]
Originally posted by seraphnb
The same way we found that- heat up the universe to approximately Big Bang temperature- is how we unite the electroweak and stong forces, and eventually gravity!