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posted by martyb on Thursday October 26 2017, @01:46PM   Printer-friendly
from the and-hummingbirds-should-not-fly dept.

The apparent symmetry between matter and antimatter is puzzling scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN):

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 [open, DOI: 10.1038/nature24048] [DX].

"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."

CP violation.

Previously: Evidence Mounts that Neutrinos are the Key to the Universe's Existence
Matter-Antimatter Asymmetry Confirmed in Baryons
LHCb Observes an Exceptionally Large Group of Particles
Possible Explanation for the Dominance of Matter Over Antimatter in the Universe


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 26 2017, @09:44PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 26 2017, @09:44PM (#588013)

    God also realized that and put Trump in to correct it.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 26 2017, @11:55PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 26 2017, @11:55PM (#588056)

    Massive Anti-Black A-hole? Trump? Oh, now I see it! (And wish I had not.)

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @06:06AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @06:06AM (#588129)

      Orange Hole

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @02:25AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @02:25AM (#588099)

    Just the result of the equation trying to balance itself out--cumulative effect of man's nature, which is far from angelic. Man accumulates debt, not in the simple money-lending sense, yet he hasn't yet learned to keep a spare gas can for when the debt catches up with him on the side of the road.