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  

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