While there are many strange unexplainable things in the universe there's one that's
almost too fascinating to be real not only is this one of the longest standing
mysteries of the universe it also holds key answers to the origins of the universe
and why everything is the way that it is welcome back to fact nominal and
for today's video we take a deep dive into matter's mysterious bizarre twin, antimatter
it all began with the famous formula e equals mc squared by Albert Einstein in his theory of
relativity explaining in detail the relationship between space and time and between energy and mass
according to this equation energy and mass are interchangeable mass can therefore be transformed
into energy or energy into mass in the 1920s Irwin Schrodinger and Werner Heisenberg brought
their new theory of quantum physics to the stage building upon Max Planck's earlier quantum theory
the only problem however was that their theory was not relativistic their quantum description
worked for particles that moved slowly but not those at high velocities then in 1928 Paul Dirac
a famous British physicist became the first to find an equation that united quantum physics with
the theory of relativity to describe the behavior of an electron moving at a relatively high speed
but his equation posed a very interesting problem just as the formula 2x equals 4 can have two
possible outcomes that is x equals two or x equals negative two dirac's equation could also have two
solutions one for an electron with positive energy and one for an electron with negative energy
this is where Paul Dirac arrived at his conclusion for every particle there exists a corresponding
anti-particle that exactly matches the particle but with an opposite charge meanwhile in 1932
american physicist carl anderson after a year-long study of particles using a cloud chamber announced
the discovery of the positive electron which of course was strange since electrons up until then
have been well known to hold a negative charge thus was born the positron or positive
electron this demonstration that the positron and electron were exact opposites of each other also
further provided proof and experimental validation to dirac's theory what paul
dirac predicted and what carl anderson later discovered is what we know today as antimatter
antimatter is more than just matter with an opposite electric charge though at times it
may sound like something straight out of science fiction antimatter was created right along with
matter after the big bang in fact antimatter is also right at the heart of the mystery about why
the universe we live in exists at all initially after the big bang only energy existed but as the
universe began to cool down and expand that's when matter and antimatter were both produced
and in equal amounts according to theory scientific experiments and measurements have
shown that particles of both matter and antimatter are found to behave identically in theory they
both should have completely annihilated each other at the very beginning leaving the cosmos
full of light and nothing else this leads to the possibility that there's perhaps at least
a small excess of matter over antimatter the fact that we exist at all is a very good case for that
there are many theories out there about why this is like the one proposed by Russian physicist
Andrei Sakharov stating that a small asymmetry in the decay of matter and antimatter particles
may have produced a surplus of matter over antimatter why exactly there's more matter
than antimatter is still a huge mystery and calls for further study of antimatter
there were many who didn't believe dirac's equation and predictions until they were proven
and fast forward to today antimatter is being produced in particle accelerators like the large
hadron collider in Switzerland in the universe there's also already some naturally occurring
antimatter the big mystery surrounding antimatter ever since its discovery as far as scientists are
concerned is why there isn't more of it in the universe and if there is then where the heck is
it that's exactly why scientists are trying to constantly cook up the perfect recipe for making
antimatter in the lab so as to be able to study and observe it let's take an example if we examine
atoms of matter we find electrons whirling around a central nucleus consider hydrogen which consists
of a single electron carrying negative electric charge and a nucleus made of a single proton which
carries the positive charge the opposite charges attract each other thus keeping the atom together
when it comes to an atom of anti-hydrogen it would be the same concept except here
the electric charges would be reversed you'll find a central negatively charged antiproton
and positively charged anti-electron better known as a positron and the opposite charges here again
attract and keep this anti-atom together but making antimatter is no easy task after all how do
you keep a substance that literally and violently destroys almost anything it touches it would
require a good vacuum to ensure the antimatter doesn't inadvertently bump into a stray atom in
the air and also keep it away from the sides of whatever you're using as the container since it's
made of matter also the solution to this is a magnetic bottle that can use electric and
magnetic fields to trap the antimatter and hold it suspended in place the real challenge however
is making and storing lots of these atoms getting a positron and an anti-proton to come near enough
to each other that their electrical attraction at least has a chance to combine and form an
atom before they annihilate any ordinary matter is another task altogether the european center
for nuclear research or cern is one such place that's dedicated to the study of these anti-atoms
using a machine called the antiproton decelerator they do just that by slowing the antiprotons down
while the electric and magnetic forces gather them together with some positrons the alpha experiment
conducted at cern even managed to make atoms of antihydrogen and store them for 17 minutes
and change the magnetic orientation of the anti-atoms by shining microwaves on them to show
more detailed measurements of their properties that may not sound like a huge achievement but
considering how extremely difficult it is to even make a single atom of antimatter
it's actually quite impressive when scientists study these atoms what they're really looking at
is the atomic spectra which can be understood as a pattern of colluded lines much like a bar
code the behavior of the positron in an atom of antihydrogen is said to be the same as a normal
electron in hydrogen by that logic their atomic barcodes should be the same if however there's
any difference detected it'll enable us to find out the actual difference between
matter and antimatter and finally solve the enigma of the asymmetry between the two
now that we know how to make antimatter the question is do we really need it or to put
it another way does antimatter really matter one of the most significant uses of antimatter that
we can see is for making bombs sound deadly well it is when it comes to a nuclear bomb where the
atoms are split it converts only a few percent of its mass into energy however in the case
of matter and antimatter annihilation as in an anti-matter bomb almost the entire mass would be
converted into energy scientists have said that dropping one gram of antimatter weighing as little
as a mere paperclip would release more energy than the hiroshima bomb which is both fascinating and
terrifying all at the same time the good news is that producing antimatter requires an enormous
amount of energy to begin with and given our current state of technology
it would take millions of years of production time another place antimatter is garnering attention is
actually in space travel it's no secret that scientists and researchers have long been trying
to think of ways to achieve near light speed travel just imagine what as little as a few
micrograms of antimatter could do to help us achieve the energy levels required for
relativistic space travel it would completely revolutionize human space exploration and trips
to whether galaxies and star systems wouldn't seem so far-fetched after all however as we're not yet
able to stabilize and store antimatter in order to study it long enough we haven't quite gotten
to that point yet and it might take generations for us to achieve any significant progress
in a more recent observation a pulsar about 1600 light years away from earth is proving to
be an exciting new source of study PSR J 2030+4415 scientists spotted an absolute colossus of a beam
erupting right from the heart of the pulsar but what's that got to do with antimatter
well this is no ordinary beam it's packed with matter and antimatter spanning 40 trillion miles
or 64 trillion kilometers from end to end that's wide enough to eclipse our entire solar system
new observations using NASA's Chandra x-ray observatory show that the
ginormous beam is full of high-energy charged particles including electrons and positrons
normally pulsars produce these kinds of particles all the time but what's interesting here is that
PSR j2030 4415 is leaking them out into deep space forming a massive beam-like structure a positron
fountain like this could actually be the source of all the positrons scientists are able to see today
as the ones formed earlier have more than likely collided with normal matter by now annihilating
both in the process studying a massive structure of this kind could actually help give us
more clues and insights on antimatter and may even possibly be the source of this
bizarre and almost surreal phenomenon anyway that's all for today what are your thoughts on
antimatter let us know in the comments and don't forget to smash that like button and subscribe
to the channel so you don't miss another video thanks for watching and we'll see you next time