How can antimatter exist at all? What amount of math had to be done until someone realized they can create it?

Question

How can antimatter exist at all? What amount of math had to be done until someone realized they can create it?

In: 4430

Answer 1

Every particle in the universe came into existence as one half of a pair of particles: a particle, and its anti-particle.

One of the great mysteries astrophysics is trying to resolve is what happened to all the anti-particles for the matter in the universe we can observe now.

Artificial anti-particles are created in a vacuum in particle accelerators and are confined by magnetic fields to keep them separate from matter.

It’s really hard to do. Most anti-particles created this way exist for small fractions of a second before being annihilated.