As I understand it (thank you, recent post), anti-matter and matter are literally identical besides the reversed charges. If that’s the case, shouldn’t there be a more-or-less equal amount of the stuff created through the big bang, as opposed to the teeny tiny amounts we typically find?
If not, why not, and if so, where the hell is it all?
Edit: TLDR, yes there should be, nobody really knows why there isn’t. Thank you!
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The short answer is *yes*, there should be. This is one of the big mysteries in physics right now, which some physicists are actively thinking about every day. Why is our universe so matter-dominated? Where did all the antimatter go? Unfortunately, until those physicists figure it out, you probably won’t get a satisfying answer
One of the great mysteries of the universe! *Either* there’s a ton of antimatter somewhere else we haven’t noticed (note: due to expansion of space there are parts of the universe where light will NEVER reach us and we can never study), *or* some bias in the laws of the universe that made matter more prevalent than antimatter but we haven’t discovered any reason for this.
ELI5 will not be able to answer the question because nobody knows!
See, we simply dont know.
For a long time we didn‘t know about antimatter. Eventually someone showed it should exist. At some point it was hypothesized that if you create a particle, an anti-particle must be formed.
Showing that such a particle has formed is really difficult, so for a long time the hypothesis was just that, a thesis. But eventually we did prove it to be correct.
And now here we are. We know particles form as a particle and an according anti-particle. Therefore the universe should be 50% antimatter, but it seems to not be the case. And we simply don‘t know why.
There are two major theories I am aware of:
– there might be a massive amount of antimatter far away, having secluded itself. This would probably be outside of the visible universe, so we would never know
– the creation of particles isnt always matter and antimatter, but rather forming matter without antimatter is favored
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