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One Of The Universe's Secrets Has Fallen

Posted by timothy on from the women-still-inscrutable dept.

actiondan writes: "The BBC has a story about scientists uncovering one of "natures best kept secrets" Apparently, they have discovered the "secret of matter" which allows the universe to exist." Yes, you can go home now -- because "the tiny difference in the decay rates of neutral K mesons and their antiparticles has been determined with a precision of one part in a million."

1 of 21 comments (clear)

  1. BBC article explains it a bit better. by quiller · · Score: 5

    The headline is fine, but the text made it seem a lot less important than it is.

    Quick synopsis for people: Observation and models had shown that there is an equal chance for matter and anti-matter to be created from energy. The question therefore was why is the universe composed almost exclusively of matter, and not anti-matter? This experiment shows that for the particle studied, there was a measurable difference in the decay rate of anti-matter versus matter. So some matter would stick around longer than the equivalent anti-matter, and multiplied by the nigh-infinite amounts we are dealing with, creates the universe we are in. (The rest gets converted back to energy which will split up into matter and anti-matter again, and continue the process of creating just a bit more matter)