just reading this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22277685

and still dont understand what antimatter is or why scientists think it is missing or even exists.

I am sure this thread will quickly go beyond my comprehension but isnt it like saying “heres a banana, there MUST be an anti banana”??

exactly you have it, it’s like the cake you eat but never get fat and all that…..look shiney thing over there

It doesn’t matter.

I’m bound to look like an @rse here but who cares …

It’s a convenient theoretical construct (sorry that sounds very pompous so let me start again ..

It’s like everything having something which is it’s opposite, which balances it or counteracts it. So if you have matter, you “must” have anti-matter. Scientists would create anti-matter as a possibility and then assume that it were real and then see what other conclusions would follow .. this can be very useful.

What’s the opposite of a banana?

A banana is made out of matter, electons and stuff. Anti-matter is the opposite of a banana.

EDIT: I told you I’d look like an @rse 😳

The physical theories around at the moment which best explain why everything is at it is depend on antimatter to make the sums work.

If evidence suggests that there isn’t antimatter in the places we expect to find it, the sums don’t work, the theories don’t work and they have to start again with even more complex theories about how everything is the way it is.

There you go – @ned explained it better than what I did

Anti-matter is the opposite of a banana.

This sentence is exactly why I love physics. 😀

What if its just wrong?

Doesn’t the banana contain both matter and anti matter?

No, the anti-banana that explains the existence of the banana contains the anti-matter. The banana’s all matter.

The above is from a physics textbook.

The big chap is the banana, the little fella below is the anti-banana. See how the anti-banana is trying to trip Mr. Banana up?

Some bananas don’t matter, especially if they’ve gone all brown and squelchy.

you have beer, you drink it. now you have anti beer. simples. its a bit to early for me tho op, why aren’t you at work? ah i see, working lunch. 😉

All of the stuff we can detect in the universe adds up to about 4% of the stuff we know has to be there because otherwise the maths that proves the existence of that 4% doesn’t work.

Some of that missing 96% is anti matter. What it looks like, consists of, how it effects the known parts of the universe is unknown at this time. Honestly, throw away your physics textbook, you won’t be needing it soon

If anti-matter ‘exists’ then surely it then just becomes matter?

All of the stuff we can detect in the universe adds up to about 4% of the stuff we know has to be there because otherwise the maths that proves the existence of that 4% doesn’t work.

So basically they came up with the answer and are now trying to prove the working out?

At GCSE maths we got told of for doing it this way round.

It exists – it must do – because there’s a picture of it on the Internet.

😯

All of the stuff we can detect in the universe adds up to about 4% of the stuff we know has to be there because otherwise the maths that proves the existence of that 4% doesn’t work.

So basically they came up with the answer and are now trying to prove the working out?

Sort of. They can see how much matter is in the universe. They can also work out how much gravity etc it has, how fast it’s moving, how quickly the universe is expanding etc etc. These things don’t add up unless the universe is much, much heavier than the total of all the bits they can see, the difference must be anti-matter. Or was it dark energy?

It’s what Chelsea’s Juan Mata calls his dad’s sister…

Auntie Mata

IGMC

At GCSE maths we got told of for doing it this way round.

But in GCSE science you learnt the scientific method, which is: think of a hypothesis which explains the thing, then develop experiments which will test whether it’s right or wrong.

They’re doing the experimenting at the moment, and they’ll have to start again if the results of the experiments say the hypothesis is wrong.

There’s lots of doubters out there, but I like to stay positron.

IGMC x2

Sort of. They can see how much matter is in the universe. They can also work out how much gravity etc it has, how fast it’s moving, how quickly the universe is expanding etc etc. These things don’t add up unless the universe is much, much heavier than the total of all the bits they can see, the difference must be anti-matter. Or was it dark energy?

Not a physicist but I think that the missing matter and energy is Dark Matter/Energy and the reason it’s called “Dark” is that it doesn’t interact with ordinary matter. Anti matter most certainly does react with normal matter. In this case anti just means that it has the opposite electrical charge to it’s partner particle. In all other respects it’s the same as matter (I think).

If anti-matter ‘exists’ then surely it then just becomes matter?

eh!?

Antimatter does it exists, its no different to normal matter, it just has the opposite electrical charge.

You could build an exact copy of the earth out of antimatter particles and it would behave in the exact same way as the normal matter earth. However if it ever ran into its normal matter twin they both would be completely annihilated in an immense flash of energy – as derived by the equation E=mc2.

The mystery is why does the universe favour normal matter? The standard model doesn’t really have the answers according to it there should have been an equal amount of matter and antimatter created at the Big Bang – there wasn’t and normal matter quickly dominated the early universe

Frankly it all sounds a bit bobbins.

There’s a theory that doesn’t quite work. So we’ll invent some more stuff, that we cant find, to make it work. But the new stuff doesn’t work with the big bang.

Nevermind, we’ll just run with it. Give it some big fancy names, explanations no one understands and ohh look at our big fancy £6bn Swiss tunnel. 😉

This video should explain everything
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/nstv/2012/10/reality-revealed-the-ultimate-fabric-of-the-universe.html

{}

But what about all the edges where matter sits next to anti matter. Doesn’t that all just result in neutral matter?

What if all that has already occured and we just live in a neutral matter universe?

Anti-matter is a banana going backwards in time 😯

But how do we honestly know if we have the Matter Banana or the Anti-Matter Banana?? If we’re in the Anti-Matter Universe then that would surely seem to be normal to us and the Matter Universe would be the opposite!!

I think I need to lie down!! 😕

some of you are confusing drark matter/energy and bannanas anti matter

Dark matter means the universe needs x amount of mass for gravity to work and for the universe to behave as it does …we call it dark matter/energy as we cannot see it and we have no idea what it is

Anti matter [ may technically]cancels out matter so we dont know why we have more matter than anti matter. The reason for this asymettry is not known at present

Some bananas don’t matter, especially if they’ve gone all brown and squelchy.

That kind of banana is great for making banana bread, so they do matter.

My mother is anti-bananas, can’t stand them.

In the anti- matter universe are most unenlightened folk atheists and it’s only the heretics who believe in Anti – God.?

camo16 – you should have done that with a biro. No better sensation that a biro on a banana.

Just for the record, is anti matter still theoretical? Or scientifically measurable, quantifiable, observable fact?

No better sensation that a biro on a banana.

Excellent advice.

* goes to find spare banana *

johnhe – I heard the other night on R4 that it has been observed, so it is fact.

So basically they came up with the answer and are now trying to prove the working out?

That’s how theoretical Physics works, and how a lot of science is done. Look for a pattern, come up with an idea, predict stuff based on your idea for a pattern, then try and do an experiment to prove it.

Problem is, you don’t really know if your pattern idea’s not the right one or your experiment just didn’t work.

Antimatter does it exists, its no different to normal matter, it just has the opposite electrical charge.

Well, not exactly. Antimatter is the exact opposite of matter in all respects.

Think about your bank account. You can have money, you can have no money, and you can have anti-money aka an overdraft. An overdraft is the exact opposite of a positive balance. You spend more, it gets bigger rather than smaller. You can trade debt, or swap IOUs, it works just like real money. If you get otherwise identical positive and negative balances together, you end up with nothing at all. You and I could start off with two empty bank accounts, I give you £100, then you have £100 and I have -£100.

The problem is that we see much more matter in the universe than antimatter. Which, since the universe was created form nothing, seems a bit counter-intuitive.

Which, since the universe was created form nothing,

Yeah, but you can’t create something from nothing, that would be like perpetual motion…

So i think something was there before the big bang, there’s my answer who wants to give me billions to prove it? 😆

Well, not exactly. Antimatter is the exact opposite of matter in all respects.

Well not exactly you haven’t accounted for mass which is never anti

But yes the universe favouring matter over antimatter is at the crux of the mystery

Well the same magnitude of mass, but it really has anti-mass being anti matter and all.