What is Anti-matter? Is Antimatter real?
By: Ishmal Khan
Tags: Universe, Antimatter, Space, Space Exploration, Parallel Universes

The mystery of the parallel universe could be solved with the discovery of antimatter. What is the reality & facts of antimatter?

Antimatter is the complete opposite of the normal matter that we have all around us. In a world full of antimatter the charge on electrons will be positive but our world is full of matter so for us the charge on an electron is negative.

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Anti-matter:

Anti-matter is a matter composed of “Anti-particles.” The anti-matter particles are Positrons (e+), Antiprotons (p) and Antineutrons (n). Collectively we call them anti-particles.

An electron is a negative charge but its anti-particle is Positive called a Positron. Although their mass is the same but charges are different. So when a particle and its anti-particle will meet, they will annihilate each other and will disappear in a burst of light.

Anti-matter is the opposite of normal matter.

Because the anti-matter is the opposite of matter which is why the properties of anti-particles have the opposite properties as compared to the properties of normal matter. The electrical charge of those particles is reversed.

Cosmologists believe that the Big bang created more matter than it created anti-matter.

Predictions about anti-matter:

Anti-matter was first predicted by physicist Paul Dirac. The father of anti-matter Paul Dirac is one of the greatest theorist since Sir Issac Newton.

Paul Dirac combined the two theories, the theory of quantum mechanics with Einstein’s relativity theory. His equation not only works for an electron with a negative charge. It also works for a particle that behaves like an electron with a positive charge (Positron). Dirac himself was once asked what he thought of his equation, he replied, “I found it beautiful”.

Physicist Paul Dirac

Dirac Equation:

Dirac equation was telling him that there is another Universe we’ve never known before. Instead of one answer, his equation has two answers. The first describes the Universe we live in, made of atoms. The second answer describes the Universe whose properties are revered as compared to our Universe (Parallel Universe). Dirac’s equation predicts the existence of anti-matter.

Dirac Equation

Dirac Theory:

Dirac’s theory states that for everything in our Universe, every particle of atoms can exist the corresponding anti-particle. Antimatter Universe would look and works just like our Universe.

According to Dirac’s equation, matter and anti-matter must never come into contact. Because if they do, they will annihilate each other there. The combined mass of matter and anti-matter will completely transfer into energy according to Einstein’s famous equation E=mc2.

Paul Dirac had once said, “If you are receptive and humble, mathematics will lead you by the hand.”

The matter is everywhere but where did the anti-matter go?

After the Big Bang, as the universe cooled and expanded, particles of both matter and antimatter were produced in equal amounts. But why matter came to dominate and antimatter is rare nowadays? That’s what scientists have yet to discover.

Creation of Anti-matter (Observation by NASA)

The energy in thunderstorms produces anti-electrons, called positrons.

New observation by NASA’s Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope showed that the thunderstorms make the anti-matter.

The process starts with a terrestrial gamma-ray flash/TGF (an intense impulse of gamma rays) originating from thunderstorms. Researchers estimated that there may be 500 TGFs each day.

On December 14th, 2004 as Fermi passed over Egypt, it spotted a TGF produced by a thunderstorm in Zambia. The TGF was over the spacecraft’s horizon where the Fermi couldn’t see it. (NASA)

NASA’s Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope

Then how the Fermi detected the TGF?

Scientists believe that the TGF process begins at the thunderstorm intense electrical field, electrons in this field become accelerated upward above the storm where the air is thin.

Creation of Anti-matter in Thunderstorm:

The electrons can ramp up nearly as fast as the speed of light. When these ultra-fast electrons encounter an atom, they emit gamma rays but rarely one of the photon from the gamma rays leave the atom and transforms into a pair of particles. One electron is normal matter and the other is antimatter called Positron.

The gamma rays travel in a straight line but the charged particles spiral along the lines of Earth’s magnetic field and that was the route to Fermi. The particles created by the TGF go upward on magnetic field lines and then struck the spacecraft. The positrons annihilate when they struck electrons in Fermi creating a flash of gamma rays.

Anti-matter can be produced in some radioactive decays, a process used in many hospitals in Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanners, which allow precise imaging within human bodies. Nowadays, experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) can produce matter and antimatter, too.

Antimatter Bomb:

Right now antimatter is the most expensive substance on Earth. It is worth about $62.5 trillion a gram. A gram of antimatter could produce an explosion the size of a nuclear bomb.

Why Anti-matter is so expensive?

The reason for antimatter’s tremendous expense is due to the technology involved in creating it. The CERN super collider is the most complex piece of machinery ever constructed by humans. It took about a decade to construct, at a cost of about $4.75 billion.