Physics is Phun!

Alright, so this isn't exactly medical news, nor is it a subject matter that I can say that I am well versed in (note: I am not currently, nor have ever been a theoretical physicist) but I have always had a soft spot for the origins of all that is that we know.  In fact, I was an astronomy major for my first 3 semesters of college until I realized that the subject matter was to far removed from everyday life.  None the less, whenever I see big astronomy or physics news, I get a little excited. 

Having made all those disclaimers, I'd like to mention something that happened in high energy physics that has many scientists excited.  Last week, the Fermi labs were able to show that collisions of matter and anti matter at very high energy would produce more muons than anti-muons.  What are muons and anti-muons?  To be honest, I'm not terribly sure other than they are components of the primary atomic particles like protons.  How does this benefit Joe public?  Well, at the moment probably not at all, but it does provide experimental evidence towards one of the biggest conundrums in astronomy and physics.  When the universe was formed in the giant ball of fire commonly referred to as the Big Bang, tons of matter and anti-matter was produced.  Now conventional wisdom, and all experiments before this advance, suggested that matter and anti-matter were always produced in equal amounts, and thus, should cancel one another out.  Under that model, there would be no matter (or anti-matter) in the universe, however, the fact that I'm typing this post that hopefully some one is reading it suggests that there is a flaw in the model.  Step in Fermi lab....products of a matter/anti-matter collision resulted in a slight imbalance toward regular muons and not anti-muons (about a 1% difference).  I realize that 1% may not seem like a lot, but when you consider the enormity of energy at the time of the big bang, well, it may have been enough to result in all the matter we see in the universe.  I find that option to be much more exciting than the theory where giant pockets of antimatter are floating around and we have just been lucky enough to avoid them...I mean, who likes to play dodge ball when the result of getting hit is total annihilation. 

So where does this leave us?  Well first, the result will need to be repeated, likely at the new collider in Switzerland, where higher levels of energy can be obtained.