![]() ![]() Īntimatter is so hard to make that it cannot be used as a weapon. This is called the antimatter asymmetry problem. We know that is not the case, because here we are! So our team is trying to find out what happened to the missing antimatter, or why more matter was created than antimatter in the first place. Our universe would just be leftover energy. īut if equal amounts of matter and antimatter were really created after the Big Bang, everything would have annihilated soon after it appeared. It is governed by the famous equation E = mc 2. How do we know this? When a particle meets its antiparticle counterpart, their masses turn completely into energy and they vanish. But something tipped the balance in favour of regular matter. Physicists theorize that at the time of the Big Bang, equal amounts of matter and antimatter should have been produced. What we are really trying to understand is why we observe more matter than antimatter in our universe. PET scanners can tell how well organs are functioning by looking for evidence of the creation of positrons. We already use our understanding of antimatter in medical scanning. That would be a clear sign that there is “new physics” that isn’t explained by the Standard Model. Physicists believe that antiparticle charges have the same value, but the opposite sign.Īs we study the physical properties of antihydrogen, we’re interested to see if we will measure values that are different than they are for regular hydrogen. The Standard Model of physics says that particles and antiparticles share all of the same properties, except charge. Note that the subatomic particles are not to scale (Let’s Talk Science using an image by pikepicture via iStockphoto). Open Professional Learning × Close Professional Learningīohr models of hydrogen and antihydrogen. Open Educational Resources × Close Educational Resources
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