One of the great mysteries
of modern physics is why antimatter did not destroy the universe at the
beginning of time. To explain it, physicists suppose there must be some
difference between matter and antimatter – apart from electric charge. Whatever
that difference is, it’s not in their magnetism, it seems.
Physicists at CERN in
Switzerland have made the most precise measurement ever of the magnetic moment
of an anti-proton – a number that measures how a particle reacts to magnetic
force – and found it to be exactly the same as that of the proton but with opposite
sign. The work is described in Nature.
“All of our observations
find a complete symmetry between matter and antimatter, which is why the
universe should not actually exist,” says Christian Smorra, a physicist at
CERN’s Baryon–Antibaryon Symmetry Experiment (BASE) collaboration. “An
asymmetry must exist here somewhere but we simply do not understand where the
difference is.”
Antimatter is notoriously
unstable – any contact with regular matter and it annihilates in a burst of
pure energy that is the most efficient reaction known to physics. That’s why it
was chosen as the fuel to power the starship Enterprise in Star Trek.
The standard model predicts
the Big Bang should have produced equal amounts of matter and antimatter – but
that’s a combustive mixture that would have annihilated itself, leaving nothing
behind to make galaxies or planets or people.
To explain the mystery,
physicists have been playing spot the difference between matter and antimatter
– searching for some discrepancy that might explain why matter came to
dominate.
Read the complete article here.
"whether antimatter might fall ‘up’"
ReplyDeleteI would really doubt that...
It is doubtful, but everything has to be checked.
DeleteA kind of "anti-gravity" repulsion would explain the acceleration of the expanding universe.
DeleteWho said there is an up or down, isn't that from our perspective ?
DeleteMaybe the the split between matter and anti-matter during the Big Bang happened at the precise moment that space itself went through the initial expansion, therefore separating the matter and anti-matter enough that they couldn't interact.
ReplyDeleteI think "up" or "down" is not validly labeled just from our perspective. Apples keep falling when no one is watching, and happy deer keep finding them on the ground, closest to the source of gravity, not up in the sky.
ReplyDeleteSo OK 28105wsking, That was exactly my question. Although you say the apple falls to the ground and the deer loves them, that's fine. I was just making a statement who in the world defined up from down or sideways. I'm waiting on your explanation!
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteObservation point, a stable or predictable viewing platform to gain perspective of an event or action....it does not matter if their is an up or down, it is a point of reference to meter or discern an affect
ReplyDelete