• Question: If it’s true according to theoretical physics (Dirac equation etc.) that there should be equal amounts of matter and antimatter in the universe, then why our observation only display vast amounts of matter and very little antimatter?

    Asked by waveicle to Adam, Sheila, Suzie on 24 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Adam Tuff

      Adam Tuff answered on 24 Mar 2011:

      The current proposal is that during the radiation era, the plasma of quarks and gluons cooled
      to allowing the phase transition to baryonic matter. Small fuctuations in this plasma caused a baryon-antibaryon imbalance, and with this symmetry broken. As to why this symmetry was broken, we don’t quite know. The Dirac equation apparently can’t describe this fluxuation or inequality. As to which is correct, I don’t know.

    • Photo: Sheila Kanani

      Sheila Kanani answered on 24 Mar 2011:

      It is true, yes. I think it is because antimatter doesnt hang around very long, so its harder to measure….but there are two main ‘scientific’ interpretations for this:

      1. Either the universe began with a small preference for matter
      or
      2. The universe was originally perfectly symmetric, but somehow a set of phenomena contributed to a small imbalance in favour of matter.

      No one knows which one is true! But scientist prefer the 2nd one because if the universe encompasses everything nothing exists outside of it and therefore nothing existed before it, leading to a total baryonic number of 0. From a more scientific point of view, there are reasons to expect that any initial asymmetry would be wiped out to zero during the early history of the universe but then why is the total baryonic number not conserved?

      Who knows!!

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