• Question: why is matter and anti matter created equally?

    Asked by liamsnook to Catherine, Charlotte, Colin, Becki, Rick on 20 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Rebecca Scott

      Rebecca Scott answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      Is it? I think there is more matter than anti-matter in the universe, but I have no idea why lol. But the people at CERN are really interested in that question as well though: http://home.web.cern.ch/about/physics/search-antimatter

    • Photo: Charlotte Dalton

      Charlotte Dalton answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      there is actually a lot more matter than antimatter in the universe, the big mystery is why we don’t have equal amounts as this is what should have happened after the big bang, something has broken the symmetry of the universe to make matter predominate and scientists are trying to find out the cause of this at the CERN large hadron collider.

    • Photo: Colin Swift

      Colin Swift answered on 22 Jun 2013:

      Not sure on this one, what I do know is that when we use high energy x-rays (above 10 MV usually but 1.022MV being the minimum) the photon will interact with the nucleus of an atom which is in its way and be transformed into an electron and its antimatter equivalent a positron. The positron will not travel far and will combine with an electron and produce photons… So I guess this is an example of matter and antimatter being created equally. I can’t speak for the rest of the universe though, sorry.

    • Photo: Catherine Fontinelle

      Catherine Fontinelle answered on 24 Jun 2013:

      Hi @liamsnook

      There’s got to be balance, don’t you think?

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