Antimatter: The Ultimate Mirror of the World

Author: Fraser
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-12-01
Features:
Recently, physicists at CERN created the first true atom of antimatter, a thrilling announcement that immediately stunned the scientific community. In the everyday world, antimatter does not exist. However, at the beginning of the universe's creation, antimatter may have been just as important as matter. Yet today, the universe seems to consist only of matter and no antimatter. What's going on? Faced with the mysterious antimatter—something that can vaporize a person with as little as less than 10^-18 grams—you must be very surprised. As early as 1928, physicist Dirac predicted the existence of antimatter in a mirror world, where the charge of particles is opposite to that of ordinary matter. This prediction was soon confirmed at the quantum scale; electrons correspond to positrons, and protons correspond to antiprotons. This book clearly and easily explains how the science fiction of antimatter became a scientific fact. The author avoids using difficult technical language or complex, troublesome equations, instead introducing the world of antimatter from the mirror world in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Through the concept of mirror symmetry in physics, the author gradually reveals the properties of antimatter. At the same time, he also describes how the construction and use of large particle accelerators in Europe and the United States have provided new clues for studying its properties, and how the discovery of antiparticles at the quantum scale has become increasingly exciting.
Recently, European nuclear physicists created the first true atom of antimatter, a thrilling announcement that immediately stunned the scientific community. In the everyday world, antimatter does not exist. However, at the beginning of the universe's creation, antimatter may have been just as important as matter. Yet today, the universe seems to consist only of matter and no antimatter. What's going on? Faced with the mysterious antimatter—something that can vaporize a person with as little as less than 10^-18 grams—you must be very surprised. As early as 1928, physicist Dirac predicted the existence of antimatter in a mirror world, where the charge of particles is opposite to that of ordinary matter. This prediction was soon confirmed at the quantum scale; electrons correspond to positrons, and protons correspond to antiprotons. This book clearly and easily explains how the science fiction of antimatter became a scientific fact. The author avoids using difficult technical language or complex, troublesome equations, instead introducing the world of antimatter from the mirror world in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Through the concept of mirror symmetry in physics, the author gradually reveals the properties of antimatter. At the same time, he also describes how the construction and use of large particle accelerators in Europe and the United States have provided new clues for studying its properties, and how the discovery of antiparticles at the quantum scale has become increasingly exciting.