Posted on 08/14/2015 9:14:59 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Matter and antimatter appear to be perfect mirror images of each other as far as anyone can see, scientists have discovered with unprecedented precision, foiling hope of solving the mystery as to why there is far more matter than antimatter in the universe.
Everyday matter is made up of protons, neutrons or electrons. These particles have counterparts known as antiparticles — antiprotons, antineutrons and positrons, respectively — that have the same mass but the opposite electric charge. (Although neutrons and antineutrons are both neutrally charged, they are each made of particles known as quarks that possess fractional electrical charges, and the charges of these quarks are equal and opposite to one another in neutrons and antineutrons.)
The known universe is composed of everyday matter. The profound mystery is, why the universe is not made up of equal parts antimatter, since the Big Bang that is thought to have created the universe 13.7 billion years ago produced equal amounts of both. And if matter and antimatter appear to be mirror images of each other in every respect save their electrical charge, there might not be much any of either type of matter left — matter and antimatter annihilate when they encounter each other
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Curious article. They discuss it as if it is a totally new concept, but this has been a cosmology topic for a long time. The balance (or lack thereof) between antimatter and matter was already part of science fiction stories in the 1950s. Mr. Spock even commented in a Star Trek episode about the mystery of the missing antimatter in the universe in the 1960s tv show. I attended astrophysics lectures that covered the issue in the early 1970s.
Not quite identical.
In the anti-universe, Spock has a beard.
And Kirk has a “roommate”
A simplistic answer to the riddle is:
‘nature abhors a vacuum.’
Since it is at the ‘quark level’, that the ‘charged fields’ can be measured, either positive or negative, and the measured quantities of positives outnumbered the negatives, the ‘null’ fields must be the areas where they have NOT ‘canceled each other out to nothingness’, but must be in perfect numerical equilibrium, and therefore neither polarity is the greater field.
A simple bar magnet has polarized ends along the long line of the bar. But what does the middle of the bar register?
Equilibrium.
Hope they try to create some antimatter in the laboratory. They will get a Nobel prize, posthumously.
It’s been done: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081117193019.htm
A black hole colliding with an anti-black hole would cause a hellacious big bang. If the collision was off center the explosion would be asymmetrical.
Thanks BenLurkin.
No, silly. The problem is “matter privilege”, and must be eradicated.
If the lies read this story, the End is near.
Libs
Oh. Da libs. Now we are on adjacent and sometimes overlapping wavelengths!
Hmmm...wondering if gravity is a property of matter, is anti-gravity a property of anti-matter? Universes would flee their anti-counterparts.
Said by Herself.
My nomination for Post of the Week.
That is precisely the answer. I'm surprised the writers of the article don't seem to get that. Read Alan Guth. Back in the 80s he and others postulated a slight asymmetry in the huge amount of stuff of the big bang: 50.00001% of it matter, 49.99999% of it antimatter. 99.99999% of all stuff annihilated and the remaining .00001% (which is all the galaxies in the known universe today) is the leftover matter from the slight imbalance.
If there were equal amounts of antimatter and matter today (as the article seems to yearn for), then there very soon there would be nothing.
Matter + antimatter -> annihilation -> nothing.
I guess they are saying we should be able to see whole galaxies of antimatter? Would we be able to see them and know that they are antimatter?
See the Xeelee series by Stephen Baxter, specifically “Transcendent.”
You will know those galaxies are antimatter when matter touches them ... keep a sharp eye out, the antimatter folks may be planning something big to revenge themselves.
I loved the Xeelee stories. Great SF.
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