In the wake of the recent news, the bizarre claim by a few scientists at the CERN facility in Switzerland that “Our Universe shouldn’t exist” is making headlines everywhere. All the buzz is around the very famous concept of ‘Antimatter.’ So what’s so special about Antimatter that has captured the glimpse of Science and Science fiction alike? How is it making its way into the pop culture and how does it matter to a person who isn’t a Physics Nerd or even remotely likes Physics. Let’s find out.
The very famous Chinese symbol Yin Yang, other than being a tattoo for pretentious people, is actually a good analogy to the Matter-Antimatter relationship. Everything around us from the gases in the stars to the screen you are reading this on, is Matter. Antimatter is exactly the opposite of Matter in all senses. While the discovery of Antimatter is quite recent, it has always been a topic of interest for Sci-fi shows like StarTrek, Rick and Morty, because of its unknown and bizarre properties.
So what do we know about it?
The idea that antimatter and matter when kept together can “destroy” the universe is fairly old, there is some truth to it. When antimatter touches matter, it releases large amounts of energy capable enough to destroy everything. But the amount of antimatter that we have produced in labs in all of history of mankind is 10 nanograms, which is enough to power a light bulb for 4 hours. But scale that up to normal quantities of say 1 kg and yes you are looking at annihilation which also happens to be what the process is called. In fact, the destruction could be equal to mixing two parts Plutonic Quartz, one part Cesium and a bottle of water.
Some facts
While producing large quantities of antimatter is still far-fetched. Humans have been successful in creating an atom of AntiHydrogen. Antihydrogen is exactly like a normal Hydrogen atom except for the fact that it has a negatively charged proton(antiproton) at its center and a positively charged electron (positron) revolving around it. It takes as much as $90 trillion to produce one gram of Antihydrogen. Since this antihydrogen cannot be stored in regular bottles since that would end up in everything exploding, we use bowls of magnetic fields to store it.
Destruction of Universe
So how does this relate to the destruction of the universe? Well, as well all know the universe began with an event aptly named as the Big Bang where all matter and energy was suddenly created and rapidly expanded. So the scientists theorized that since during the Big Bang equal amounts of matter and antimatter were created, well the answer should Hence, our universe shouldn’t exist. But here we are in flesh, so obviously something is wrong. Some scientists believe that there might be more matter than antimatter to begin with. The concrete answer isn’t found yet and a Nobel Prize is up for grabs to whoever can solve this mystery.
How does it affect us?
Here’s where it gets interesting. We use certain properties of Antimatter even today in our medical fields. The very famous PET(Positron Emission Tomography) uses positrons to scan for radioactive traces and cancer. Who thought antimatter could cure cancer, right? More future applications can be derived from science fiction itself. Star Trek is not only a great movie but an example of how human imagination can take us places, literally.
Nature has symmetry. Light becomes two particles, matter and antimatter. So if we are matter, where’s the antimatter?
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson
We are right now at the frontier of discovery, a Columbus moment. There is a lot we humans still don’t know about antimatter and we definitely don’t know how to safely use it. But every day we learn a little more about this enigmatic substance and more about all the event that led to you, the reader to read this line.