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LHCb Experiment Observes New Matter-Antimatter Difference
An anonymous reader writes "Matter and antimatter are thought to have existed in equal amounts at the beginning of the Universe, but today the Universe appears to be composed essentially of matter. By studying subtle differences in the behavior of particles and antiparticles, experiments at the LHC are seeking to cast light on this dominance of matter over antimatter. Now the LHCb experiment has observed a preference for matter over antimatter known as CP-violation in the decay of neutral B0s particles. The results are based on the analysis of data collected by the experiment in 2011."
Now the LHCb experiment has observed a preference for matter over antimatter known as CP-violation
If the pro-matter people are violating CP laws, I want nothing to do with them.
Just Say No to matter!
Q: Why is starting a comment in the Subject: line incredibly irritating?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Imagine if a photon travels not much faster than an electron (a few cms a second) and the effect we observe as light is no different than the thrust we observe from an electron. A push in much smaller particles.
Since we only observe a photon by detecting it indirectly via promotion/demotion of electrons, a photon could be very very very small. And yet we can only detect an aggregate capable of promoting an electron. If it can't promote or demote then it can't be detected and we think it isn't there.
What if matter and anti matter are just different arrangements of much smaller charged particles, any particle you can make that is stable, must also have an anti particle that is stable because you could swap all the -ve for +ve particles.
What if light is really just tiny one +- fundamental particles and not the much larger photon claimed.
What if space is matter and there's no such thing as a vacuum?
Matter and antimatter are thought to have existed in equal amounts at the beginning of the Universe
yes, both zero at the beginning.
before it's asked is even worse
Watch those corners
truths include its preferences for organic food, bob dylan music, and neil degrasse tyson.
check more at: urenhud.com
"CP-violation"
Right. Like I'm going to click on that link.
but the headline is a bit grandiose - there is nothing new about CP violation. CP violation has been known for a very long time and there are at least three other examples of it prior to LHCb report. Also, as CERN notes, others were not able to accumulate sufficient statistics to make the observational claim. Perhaps "CERN's LHCb confirms CP violation in another particle" my be both a more accurate way of describing it and also less "omg, ponies!"
Nobody asked what was worse!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
...that we are definitely made of matter. If we were made of anti-matter, wouldn't matter actually look like anti-matter to us, only because it isn't what we're made of?
Not really. We have defined an electron (matter) as the electron-particle that has a negative electric charge. A positron (anti-electron, antimatter) is an electron with a positive charge. Same goes for protons etc, and we know for certain that we and all the matter around us are composed of the 'matter' version.
Also, if matter and anti-matter existed in equal amounts at the beginning, wouldn't the remaining particles, regardless of what they are (after all the self-annihilation and whatnot) be considered matter by default?
No, because if they were equal in quantity, the left over particles would be a 50-50 mix of matter and antimatter, but this is not the case in reality.
It's normal to find coins under the seat, this time they found coins inside the seat.
Now we just need Prof. Farnsworth's smell-o-scope!
8D CB F5 32 BE 2C 49 E9 B5 4A 75 C8 8A 59 70. It's mine, all mine!
What type of matter most of the universe is made of? Past this particular gravity well of our sun, how do we tell that the rest of the planets and stars are not anti-matter planets and anti-matter stars?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Isn't there required to be more matter than antimatter in the universe? Otherwise the universe wouldn't exist because equal parts of matter and antimatter would annihilate each other and we'd just have a bunch of energy and no matter or anti-matter.
"How should we make it attractive for them [young people] to spend 5,6,7 years in our field, be satisfied, learn about excitement, but finally be qualified to find other possibilities?" -- H. Schopper
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Spin_(public_relations)#Techniques
And a warning besides PR spin to non-western members:
"The cost [...] has been evaluated, taking into account realistic labor prices in different countries. The total cost is X (with a western equivalent value of Y) [ahol Y>X]
forrás: LHCb calorimeters : Technical Design Report
ISBN: 9290831693 http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/494264
We have defined electron as matter only because it is part of what we're made of. If however, atoms were composed of positrons instead of electrons, wouldn't electrons be considered anti-matter?
Perhaps, but that's the thing. Super symmetry doesn't exist, so things would work differently in the anti-matter dominated universe.
Sure, but that's not relevant. We have chosen to label the stuff that dominates our universe as matter because it's what we saw first. Ultimately though it's just a name. We could call them this-matter and that-matter and the physics wouldn't change.
Matter...Anti-Matter...I'm the guy with the gun.
There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
Meanwhile, in a parallel universe: "...experiments at the LHC are seeking to cast light on this dominance of antimatter over matter."
We could call them this-matter and that-matter and the physics wouldn't change.
You can go with this or you can go with that
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
"Matter" is a relative term, based on that which with are most familiar. Anti-matter is whatever is the exact opposite of our "normal" matter. You can't have an "anti" anything without a "normal" something.
How do we know this?
We know this by looking for gamma rays produced by matter/anti-matter annihilations. The solar wind does not annihilate with out atmosphere so we know the sun is made of matter. This same wind does not annihilate with the interstellar medium in the galaxy so that is made of matter. No other star has visible annihilation lines with this medium either so we can be sure the entire galaxy is made of matter. Further out out galaxy does not create annihilations with the medium in the local super cluster of galaxiesand neither does any other galaxy so we know that the local super cluster is all made of matter.
To go further afield is harder since at this point the distances rule out detecting gamma rays from the incredibly sparse intergalactic medium (at least this was true several years ago - perhaps astronomers can do better now?). So instead what you can do is look at galactic collisions. No colliding pair of galaxies emits gamma radiation consistent with annihilation events so either the universe is really perverse and somehow no pair of colliding galaxies is ever a matter/antimatter pair OR there are no anti-matter galaxies out there to collide with. So while it is impossible to rule out that there might be one or two anti-matter galaxies hiding in some distant corner of the universe there are clearly far, far more matter galaxies than anti-matter ones.
Actually there is. Of course it is only interested in thermal energy but nevertheless it is there. One of the most beautiful bits of mathematics, Nöther's Theorem, shows that for any symmetry there must be a conservation law (or vice versa). For energy the cause of the conservation law is that the laws of physics are all symmetric under translation in time i.e. the laws of physics today are the same as they were yesterday. So while the reason for energy conservation has nothing to do with thermodynamics it is still stated as its first law.
Now that they have been cancelled again, perhaps he'll sell it to you.
who asked what was worse?
Who's on first, and didn't ask what was worse. I Don't Know didn't ask what was worse either.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Its highly misleading to say that the second law is just a statistical one. There is no known way to violate this in a macroscopic way, to imply it is 'only statistically true' has fallen flat and has been out of fashion for decades. Additionally, there is evidence that this principle of entropy is farther reaching such as the work of susskind and the holographic principle that proved stephen hawking WRONG about the nature of entropy in black hole singularities, and in fact most likely about the expanding horizion of the visible universe.
In short using the principle of the second law of thermodynamics has allowed us to peer far further into the workings of the universe than simple heat transfer and order in systems.
How can I vote in a poll that only offers one option? I'd like to offer a second option:
B: Actually, it's not incredibly irritating. The parent is merely acting like a whiny, little bitch.
I vote option B.
So, in other words...it...breaks the flow of a message?
You see what I did there?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!