In cosmology, recombination refers to the epoch during which charged electrons and protons first became bound to form electrically neutral hydrogen atoms. Recombination occurred about 370,000 years after the Big Bang (at a redshift of z = 1100). The word "recombination" is misleading, since the Big Bang theory doesn't posit that protons and electrons had been combined before, but the name exists for historical reasons since it was named before the Big Bang hypothesis became the primary theory of the creation of the universe.