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Asked by marcusw to Adam, Catherine, Karen, Leila, Nazim on 15 Mar 2012.
Question: do you think anti matter was created at the same time as matter?
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Adam Stevens answered on 14 Mar 2012:
We think that the processes that created matter should have created just as much anti matter. Somewhere there must have been an unbalance that meant we ended up with a matter universe (or maybe our matter is really antimatter!). The imbalance could have been tiny, but if it occurred early on in the life of the universe it could still have left us with what we see today.
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Leila Battison answered on 15 Mar 2012:
The theories we have suggest that there should have been the same amount of matter and antimatter, but everything we see today is made of just matter. So there must have been something that has been getting rid of the antimatter, or some reason why not as much was created in the first place. Or maybe it is hiding somewhere at the other end of the universe!
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Karen Masters answered on 17 Mar 2012:
The current thinking is that everything was formed in the Big Bang – so all anti-matter and matter. The wierd thing is though that we think an equal amount of matter and anti-matter should have formed, and that then it would just have all annihilated each other – so nothing left over. But we see a lot more matter than anti-matter, so that’s a bit of a puzzle for Physicists still….
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Nazim Bharmal answered on 18 Mar 2012:
One of the mysteries is that when the universe began, we first predict that there should be as much matter and anti-matter. The problem is, that would mean the matter and anti-matter would collide, explode, and result in nothing but photons.
There are lots of theories as to why we do have matter now but very little anti-matter around us. One is that some galaxies are made of anti-matter only.
We can make more anti-matter using particle accelerators, but only in tiny amounts (a few hundred atoms I think is the current record).
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