Physicists Finally Reveal the Terrifying Truth About Antimatter

 

While there are many strange unexplainable things in the universe there's one that's almost too fascinating to be real not

 only is this one of the longest standing mysteries of the universe it also holds

 key answers to the origins of the universe and why everything is the way that it

 is welcome back to fact nominal and

 for today's article we take a deep dive into matter's mysterious bizarre twin, antimatter it all began with the famous formula e equals mc squared by Albert Einstein in his theory of relativity explaining in detail the relationship between space and time and between energy and mass according to this equation energy and mass are interchangeable mass can therefore be transformed into energy or energy into mass in the 1920s Irwin Schrodinger and Werner Heisenberg brought their new theory of quantum physics to the stage building upon Max Planck's earlier quantum theory the only problem however was that their theory was not relativistic their quantum description worked for particles that moved slowly but not those at high velocities then in 1928 Paul Dirac a famous British physicist became the first to find an equation that united quantum physics with the theory of relativity to describe the behavior of an electron moving at a relatively high speed but his equation posed a very interesting problem just as the formula 2x equals 4 can have two possible outcomes that is x equals two or x equals negative two dirac's equation could also have two solutions one for an electron with positive energy and one for an electron with negative energy this is where Paul Dirac arrived at his conclusion for every particle there exists a corresponding anti-particle that exactly matches the particle but with an opposite charge meanwhile in 1932 american physicist carl anderson after a year-long study of particles using a cloud chamber announced the discovery of the positive electron which of course was strange since electrons up until then have been well known to hold a negative

 charge thus was born the positron or positive electron this demonstration that the positron and electron were exact opposites of each other also further provided proof and experimental

 validation to dirac's theory what paul

 dirac predicted and what carl anderson later discovered is what we know today as antimatter antimatter is more than just matter with an opposite electric charge though at times it may sound like something straight out of science fiction antimatter was created right along with matter after the big bang in fact antimatter is also right at the heart of the mystery about why the universe we live in exists at all initially after the big bang only energy existed but as the universe began to cool down and expand that's when matter and antimatter were both produced and in equal amounts according to theory scientific experiments and measurements have shown that particles of both matter and antimatter are found to behave identically in theory they both should have completely annihilated each other at the very beginning leaving the cosmos full of light and nothing else this leads to the possibility that there's perhaps at least a small excess of matter over antimatter the fact that we exist at all is a very good case for that there are many theories out there about why this is like the one proposed by Russian physicist Andrei Sakharov stating that a small asymmetry in the decay of matter and antimatter particles may have produced a surplus of matter over antimatter why exactly there's more matter than antimatter is still a huge mystery

 and calls for further study of antimatter there were many who didn't believe dirac's equation and predictions until they were proven and fast forward to today antimatter is being produced in particle accelerators like the large hadron collider in Switzerland in the universe there's also already some naturally occurring antimatter the big mystery surrounding antimatter ever since its discovery as far as scientists are concerned is why there isn't more of it in the universe and if there is then where the heck is it that's exactly why scientists are trying to constantly cook up the perfect recipe for making antimatter in the lab so as to be able to study and observe it let's take an example if we examine atoms of matter we find electrons whirling around a central nucleus consider hydrogen which consists of a single electron carrying negative electric charge and a nucleus made of a single proton which carries the positive charge the opposite charges attract each other thus keeping the atom together when it comes to an atom of anti-hydrogen it would be the same concept except here the electric charges would be reversed you'll find a central negatively charged antiproton and positively charged anti-electron better known as a positron and the opposite charges here again attract and keep this anti-atom together but making antimatter is no easy task after all how do you keep a substance that literally and violently destroys almost anything it touches it would require a good vacuum to ensure the antimatter doesn't inadvertently bump into a stray atom in the air and also keep it away from the sides of whatever you're using as the container since it's made of matter also the solution to this is a magnetic bottle that can use electric and magnetic fields to trap the antimatter and hold it suspended in place the real challenge however is making and storing lots of these atoms getting a positron and an anti-proton to come near enough to each other that their electrical attraction at least has a chance to combine and form an atom before they annihilate any ordinary matter is another task altogether the european center for nuclear research or cern is one such place that's dedicated to the study of these anti-atoms using a machine called the antiproton decelerator they do just that by slowing the antiprotons down while the electric and magnetic forces gather them together with some positrons the alpha experiment conducted at cern even managed to make atoms of antihydrogen and store them for 17 minutes and change the magnetic orientation of the anti-atoms by shining microwaves on them to show more detailed measurements of their properties that may not sound like a huge achievement but considering how extremely difficult it is to even make a single atom of antimatter it's actually quite impressive when scientists study these atoms what they're really looking at is the atomic spectra which can be understood as a pattern of colluded lines much like a bar code the behavior of the positron in an atom of antihydrogen is said to be the same as a normal electron in hydrogen by that logic their atomic barcodes should be the same if however there's any difference detected it'll enable us

 to find out the actual difference between matter and antimatter and finally solve

 the enigma of the asymmetry between the two now that we know how to make antimatter the question is do we really need it or to put it another way does antimatter really matter one of the most significant uses of antimatter that we can see is for making bombs sound deadly well it is when it comes to a nuclear bomb where the atoms are split it converts only a few percent of its mass into energy however in the case of matter and antimatter annihilation as in an anti-matter bomb almost the entire mass would be converted into energy scientists have said that dropping one gram of antimatter weighing as little as a mere paperclip would release more energy than the hiroshima bomb which is both fascinating and terrifying all at the same time the good news is that producing antimatter requires an enormous amount of energy to begin with and

 given our current state of technology

 it would take millions of years of production time another place antimatter is garnering attention is actually in space travel it's no secret that scientists and researchers have long been trying to think of ways to achieve near light speed travel just imagine what as little as a few micrograms of antimatter could do to help us achieve the energy levels required for relativistic space travel it would completely revolutionize human space exploration and trips to whether galaxies and star systems wouldn't seem so far-fetched after all however as we're not yet able to stabilize and store antimatter in order to study it long enough we haven't quite gotten to that point yet and it might take generations for us to achieve any significant progress in a more recent observation a pulsar about 1600 light years away from earth is proving to be an exciting new source of study PSR J 2030+4415 scientists spotted an absolute colossus of a beam erupting right from the heart of the pulsar but what's that got to do with antimatter well this is no ordinary beam it's packed with matter and antimatter spanning 40 trillion miles or 64 trillion kilometers from end to end that's wide enough to eclipse our entire solar system new observations using NASA's Chandra

 x-ray observatory show that the

 ginormous beam is full of high-energy charged particles including electrons and positrons normally pulsars produce these kinds of particles all the time but what's interesting here is that PSR j2030 4415 is leaking them out into deep space forming a massive beam-like structure a positron fountain like this could actually be the source of all the positrons scientists are able to see today as the ones formed earlier have more than likely collided with normal matter by now annihilating both in the process studying a massive structure of this kind could actually help give us more clues and insights on antimatter and may even possibly be the source of this

 bizarre and almost surreal phenomenon anyway that's all for today what are your thoughts on antimatter let us know in the comments and don't forget to smash that like button and subscribe to the channel so you don't miss another article thanks for reading and we'll see you next time