 |
 |
Matter Antimatter Abundances
Name: Deanna Koh X.
Status: N/A
Age: 15
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: 1/13/2003
Question:
Some people say that matter would have out-numbered
anti-matter (hence after annihilating there would still be excess
matter), but how it this possible?
Replies:
It is not known why matter is apparently the only "stuff" of the Universe.
Cosmological theories (to the extent that I understand them) would predict
that the "Big Bang" would produced equal amounts of each.
I have not seen any "explanation" of why matter won out over anti-matter.
One "explanation" says it was a random fluctuation, and once that started
everything followed like knocking down a row of dominos. Other
cosmologists reject that idea as being nonsense, and that there is some, as
yet unknown, asymmetry between matter and anti-matter hat is the cause. The
mystery remains.
To expand a bit on your question, there is a lot that is not well
understood (or not understood at all) about how the Universe works. For
example, gravity, the wave-particle duality of atomic and sub-atomic
particles,
what 'time' is, and anti-matter. The equations describing anti-matter are
the same for matter and anti-matter if you accept the notion that time can
be negative. If you are interested in investigating your question further, I
recommend "Schroedinger's Kittens" by Gribbon. It is not mathematical but
accurately describes the results of "state of the art" view of quantum
mechanics, which is at the heart of what is not understood.
Vince Calder
Click here to return to the Physics Archives
| |
Update: June 2012
|
|
