Matter, Antimatter, Dark Matter, What’s the Matter?

February 10, 2019 – We are made of matter. So is the Earth, the Sun, all the planets, the visible galaxy, and the visible Universe. Matter is what we see. It’s this antimatter thing that makes you wonder if there is a parallel Universe that is the negative to our positive.

The classical perception of antimatter is that it is matter with an opposite charge. So why can’t we see that which is the negative balance to our positive matter? And why isn’t there an equal amount of it around as a counterbalance to all existing matter?

Well, it turns out that matter and antimatter are not in balance. There’s more of what constitutes us than antimatter. If it was not so then there would be no visible Universe. States Jens Oluf Andersen, Professor in the Department of Physics, at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, “we’re here because there’s more matter than antimatter in the Universe.” It would not be so if the two were equal because when they meet, they cancel each other leaving only a flicker of light. A paper written by Professor Andersen and colleagues, published in November of last year attempts to enlighten us further about matter and antimatter and the imbalance of their existence in the visible Universe.

So when did this imbalance between matter and antimatter start? Some cosmologists argue that it began at the moment of The Big Bang. That the imbalance was a precondition that may have been the spark that created our Universe. Matter in the form of a surplus of quarks, natures smallest building blocks, made the Universe possible.

If you watch the sitcom, The Big Bang Theory, you may have noted that Sheldon and Amy in an episode entitled “The Confirmation Polarization” developed a theory of super asymmetry. Although there is no theory of super asymmetry, there is one called supersymmetry, an extension of the standard model of particle physics. The theory states that every particle in the standard model is paired with a supersymmetric partner. More than 10,000 papers have been published on this topic.

So once again we are confronted with what should be a zeroing out of all that exists. Matter gets balanced by antimatter which should then equal zero. Particles we call matter get paired with supersymmetric particles. Do they equally balance out leaving us with zero. Are supersymmetric particles antimatter?

And then there is dark matter, the other question mark in the composition of all that exists. Many scientists believe that dark matter and antimatter are one and the same. And yet we are told that dark matter makes up 80% of the material in our Universe. How can that be when the visible Universe exists because of a surplus of matter over antimatter?

And then there are physicists who argue that antimatter is just like normal matter but exists in a dimension where time is going backward. The idea was first speculated upon by Richard Feynman, who is an iconic figure often mentioned reverentially by characters in The Big Bang Theory.

Maybe what Ricky Ricardo used to say to Lucy, “you’ve got some splaining to do,” needs to be asked of cosmologists and physicists studying matter, antimatter, and the mystery of dark matter.

Anyway, just something fun to think about on a grey Sunday afternoon here in the middle of winter in Toronto where there is plenty of matter to be seen around me, and nary a speck of the other stuff.