• Question: What is an anti- universe?

    Asked by 572enek49 to Emma, Karla, Shane, Stephen, Yang on 9 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Karla Dussan

      Karla Dussan answered on 9 Nov 2017:

      Had to google that! I really do not know anything about that and am certainly not qualified in the area đŸ™‚

    • Photo: Emma Hanley

      Emma Hanley answered on 9 Nov 2017:

      Like Karla I had to google this one, I remember learning a bit about matter and anti-matter in physics but not sure what the anti-universe was. I am definitely no expert in this but from my reading of it, it is a theory that our universe which is made of matter also exists as a universe made up of anti-matter which is opposite to ours when you look at the particles, that they have opposite charges and spin but the same mass. Sorry I cannot give a more detailed answer.

    • Photo: Stephen Rhatigan

      Stephen Rhatigan answered on 9 Nov 2017:

      An atom of ordinary matter has protons and neutrons clustered together in the nucleus and electrons orbiting about the nucleus. Protons have a positive electrical charge, neutrons have no electrical charge and electrons have a negative electrical charge.
      An atom of anti-matter has anti-protons and anti-neutrons in the nucleus and anti-electrons whizzing around. Anti-protons have the same mass as normal protons but they have an opposite electrical charge. The same for anti-electrons and normal electrons.
      When a particle meets its anti-particle they annihilate each other. This means that both are converted into high energy gamma rays.
      Our universe likes symmetry. This means that in the Big Bang we would expect that equal amounts of matter and anti-matter were produced. But then everything would have annihilated and none of us would exist.
      Maybe more matter than anti-matter was produced… but why?
      Or maybe they were produced in equal amounts and somehow didn’t annihilate. But only a tiny fraction of the mass in the universe is made of anti-matter…. so where did it all go?
      Maybe all the anti-matter exists in an anti-universe at the edge of our universe or in pockets within our universe?
      I’m no expert about this stuff but it is cool to think about. It’s a mixture of science, science fiction and philosophy.

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