the fundamental laws of nature at first glance appear symmetric according to three properties the first property is charge we are most familiar with electric charge associated with the electromagnetic force positive and negative theoretically under charge symmetry the positively charged up quarks and negatively charged down quarks that comprise protons and neutrons should be identical in mass and nuclear reactions should proceed identically if using a proton or neutron as instigator the second is parity often thought of as handedness because your own hands display the very concept no matter how much you rotate it your left hand will never be the same as your right it is only through the use of a mirror that you can turn one into the other by itself the notion of parity symmetry states that the universe has no preferred direction to anything but charge parity the combination of both charge and parity symmetry dictates that if you were to put our universe through a mirror and replaced mata with antimatter this new universe would look and act identical to our own should extraterrestrial life from that universe deign to visit us our telescopes would be unable to reveal their composition until the first contact handshake resulted in our mutual destruction and the third property is time time symmetry dictates that the laws of physics should operate the same if every particle suddenly found its direction speed and spin flipped to the opposite orientation as if some cosmic hand was hitting the rewind button on the remote for our universe together these principles make up cpt symmetry upon which our fundamental understanding of reality is based but what if these principles were very slightly broken
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