Why the universe shouldn't exist at all

AdamSmith · April 1, 2018

Why the universe shouldn't exist at all

Very approximately, for every billion antimatter subatomic particles that were made in the Big Bang, there were a billion-and-one matter particles. The billion matter and antimatter particles were annihilated, leaving the small amount of leftover matter (the "one") that went on to make up the universe we see around us. This is accepted science.

However, we don't know the process whereby the asymmetry in the laws of the universe arose. One possible explanation revolves around a class of subatomic particles called leptons.

The most well-known of the leptons is the familiar electron, found around atoms. However, a less known lepton is called the neutrino. Neutrinos are emitted in a particular kind of nuclear radiation, called beta decay. Beta decay occurs when a neutron in an atom decays into a proton, an electron, and a neutrino.

Neutrinos are fascinating particles. They interact extremely weakly; a steady barrage of neutrinos from the nuclear reactions in the sun pass through the entire Earth essentially without interacting. Because they interact so little, they are very difficult to detect and study. And that means that there are properties of neutrinos that we still don't understand.

Still a mystery to scientists is whether there is a difference between neutrino matter and neutrino antimatter. While we know that both exist, we don't know if they are different subatomic particles or if they are the same thing. That's a heavy thought, so perhaps an analogy will help.

Imagine you have a set of twins, with each twin standing in for the matter and antimatter neutrinos. If the twins are fraternal, you can tell them apart, but if they are identical, you can't. Essentially, we don't know which kind of twins the neutrino matter/antimatter pair are. You