antimatter Archives - DOES GOD EXIST? TODAY

June 20, 2023June 19, 2023

Matter Greatly Exceeds Antimatter

It’s “one of the Universe’s best-kept secrets” and a mystery that physicists are working to resolve. Every subatomic particle in the universe has an antimatter equivalent. Each atom consists of electrons, protons, and neutrons. The negative electrons have alternative positrons with a positive charge. If you could combine an electron and a positron, they would cancel each other. Protons and neutrons, which compose the nucleus of atoms, are made of smaller particles called quarks. There are also anti-quarks, and if you combined a quark and an anti-quark, they would explode and destroy each other. Our universe, and us, can only exist because matter greatly exceeds antimatter.

If matter and antimatter were in a state of symmetry with equal amounts, they would have destroyed each other, and nothing would exist. Scientists theorize that the creation event, or Big Bang, should have created an equal amount of matter and antimatter, so they wonder why the lack of symmetry. In other words, why does anything exist in the universe, our planet, and our bodies? The universe is made of matter, while antimatter is almost non-existent except in radioactive particle decay and particle colliders such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland and France.

According to the Standard Model of particle physics, physicists theorize that a “charge-conjugation parity violation” (CP) caused the lack of symmetry – but how and why? Physicists working with the LHC say particles and antiparticles can spontaneously transform from one to the other. LHC spokesperson Chris Parkes said, “Through more precise measurement, large improvements have been made in our knowledge. These are key parameters that aid our search for unknown effects from beyond our current theory.”

We can be thankful that in today’s universe, the amount of matter greatly exceeds antimatter. Since physicists are looking for an explanation, they may eventually solve the mystery. It will be interesting to see the scientific explanation for the lack of symmetry. Whatever process scientists discover, we suggest that this is another example where intelligence and wisdom provide a more reasonable ultimate explanation than accidental chance offers.

References: CERN News and Space.com

September 7, 2021September 7, 2021

You Should Not Exist

Do you realize that from virtually every standpoint, you should not exist? Philosophers debate the question of, “Why is there something instead of nothing?” However, the physics of your existence is much more of an issue than a philosophical debate.

Modern scientific discoveries have added to the evidence that you should not exist. We know that matter and energy are directly related. We can turn matter into energy, as evidenced by the atomic bomb. Scientists have now shown that energy can be turned into matter. Einstein’s equation E = mc² can work forward and backward.

The complicating factor is that two kinds of matter are always produced when energy is turned into matter. In addition to the ordinary matter we are made of, there is also a mirror image of it called “antimatter.” Antimatter consists of positively charged electrons (positrons) and negatively charged protons (antiprotons). When matter and antimatter are combined, they destroy each other, reverting to the energy from which they came. The cosmic creation event should have created equal amounts of matter and antimatter. How did they not destroy each other?

Another physics principle that says you should not exist is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It says that in a closed system, things tend to move to disorder. This law allows diffusion to happen. It is why we, and everything else, fall apart with age. The cosmos, by definition, is a closed system. Carl Sagan used to say, “The cosmos is everything that is or ever was or ever will be.” The physical world is slowly dissolving, and disorder (called entropy) is increasing. The stringent conditions needed for you to exist are becoming less and less likely.

The Bible writers recognized this fact. Isaiah wrote, “Lift up your eyes to the heavens, look at the Earth beneath. The heavens will vanish like smoke, the Earth will wear out like a garment, and its inhabitants will die like flies, but my salvation will last forever…” (Isaiah 51:6). The spiritual realm is not affected by entropy, but the physical realm is. We exist because God created us. How He separated matter and antimatter is a mystery to science. How life came into being with the massive increase of order can only be explained because God designed our existence for a purpose.

When you take the position of the atheist, you should not exist. Existence is a vast mystery that philosophers and scientists can’t answer. From a biblical perspective, we are major players in the struggle between good and evil. (Read the book of Job.) We have a purpose, and we exist to fulfill that purpose. Being created in the image of God answers many of our questions. COVID, climate change, and the struggles between good and evil in our world remind us that our existence is temporary. There is a new existence coming that will verify why we exist in the present.

June 19, 2021June 18, 2021

The Antimatter Dilemma

One of the fascinating problems scientists face as they investigate the creation is the antimatter dilemma. Einstein’s famous equation e=mc² tells us that energy and mass are directly related. We know that mass can be turned into energy, which is the basis of the atomic bomb and nuclear power generation.

Complex experiments have allowed scientists to turn energy into mass, producing two kinds of matter. One kind of matter is the ordinary kind that we all know about – negative electrons, positive protons, and neutrons with no charge. The other kind of matter is the opposite of ordinary matter. The nucleus of this antimatter has negatively charged protons and electrons with a positive charge, called positrons. When antimatter comes in contact with ordinary matter, they destroy each other and revert to the energy from which they came.

Antimatter atoms do exist, and scientists can produce them in the laboratory. They must be stored in magnetic fields because they would destroy any container made of ordinary matter. If the universe was created by turning energy into matter, there should be equal amounts of matter and antimatter in the cosmos. The antimatter dilemma is how did our kind of matter get isolated so that we can exist?

We can’t tell if the stars we see are made of matter or antimatter. That is because the light coming from them is not matter, so antistar radiation and normal star radiation would look the same. The process that propels nuclear reactions in stars produces gamma rays. The gamma rays that the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is detecting are not what normal stars would produce. For that reason, astrophysicists believe they are seeing emissions from antimatter stars.

The Bible tells us that God is energy (light – 1 John 1:5). Because of that, God could create the universe by simply taking some energy and turning it into matter. Suggesting that the creation process was not guided by intelligence means some unknown force solved the antimatter dilemma by separating matter and antimatter at the point of creation. Of course, that does not explain the origin of energy. Researchers say that finding evidence for antimatter stars “would be a major blow for the standard cosmological model.”

“In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth” is a very simple statement, but the presence of antimatter tells us that what God did is incredibly complex. This is real creation and speaks once again of God’s wisdom and power.

Reference: Science News, June 5. 2021, pages 8-9.

April 26, 2021April 20, 2021

Building an Atom Is Not Simple

When I started teaching high school chemistry in 1959, scientists described the starting point for matter as the atom. They knew that atoms are composed of electrons orbiting a nucleus that contains protons and neutrons. Building an atom did not seem so complicated. Nobody thought to ask if the components of the atom were made up of still smaller particles. The theory was that protons, neutrons, and electrons are the starting point for all of chemistry.

Research in the 1950s raised some troubling questions. Particle accelerators smashing particles together at high energies revealed a wide variety of previously unknown subatomic constituents making building an atom more complex.

Since that time, scientists have organized three groups that give a coherent picture of the particles and forces God used in building an atom. One is the quark group. It contains six particles which, when combined, produce a variety of larger particles, including protons and neutrons. There are also six lightweight particles called leptons, which include electrons. The third group comprises force-carrying particles which hold quarks together and account for electromagnetism and the weak and strong nuclear forces. The four members of this group are photons, gluons, W bosons, and Z bosons.

This understanding is called “The Standard Model.” Why do we care about all of this? On a practical level, it has led to the whole field of nuclear science. The application of nuclear science can be destructive, as seen in the atomic bomb. It can also offer great uses as an energy source, and it provides a wide range of medical uses. On an apologetic level, this understanding shows the wisdom and design built into every corner of our existence. All of these particles can decay into other things. We still do not understand how gravity fits into this model, but the power and wisdom required to produce the building blocks of matter speak volumes of their Creator.

Several of these particles have antimatter partners. Science is discovering more and more evidence showing that the origin of quarks and leptons is rooted in dimensions beyond the three dimensions of space and time, which we know. When you observe the wisdom and design built into the way all of this is organized, you have a good picture of how God’s creative wisdom has resulted in the world in which we live.

We now know that ultimately all quarks, leptons, and force particles will dissolve into the energy from which they came. Second Peter 3:10-12 describes this process in vivid detail. Numerous passages like Proverbs 8:22-23 hint at the history of God’s power, energy, wisdom, and design in the creation of the physical cosmos. Building an atom is an incredibly complicated thing to do, and the very existence of matter speaks to the magnificence of God.

January 6, 2020April 27, 2023

Why Does Matter Exist?

Why does matter exist? That may sound like a silly question, but as we study nuclear reactions, it becomes crucial. Nuclear reactions produce two kinds of matter—matter and antimatter. The strange thing about these two forms of matter is that when they collide, they destroy each other, producing nothing but energy.

In the past 50 years, scientists have found that every kind of matter seems to have an antimatter equivalent. Science has discovered that electrons, which are well understood, have antimatter particles called anti-electrons or positrons. We now have ways of producing beams of positrons that physicists use in all kinds of experiments. Einstein’s famous equation, e = mc² can be verified when we collide positrons and electrons.

Research has led to the discovery of antiprotons, antineutrons, antineutrinos, antimuons, etc. If nuclear processes were involved in the creation of the universe, the cosmos should be full of the same amount of antimatter as there is matter. Could there be antiplanets, antistars, antigalaxies, etc.? One can even postulate antipeople. You could create the ultimate soap opera where a matter boy falls in love with an antimatter girl. The problem is that he can’t touch her, because if he does, their physical particles will all destroy each other in a huge thermonuclear explosion that would wipe out the planet.

That fictitious fable can’t happen, but it raises an important point. If all nuclear reactions produce equal amounts of matter and antimatter, shouldn’t all the matter and antimatter eventually collide and produce nothing but energy. Why does matter exist?

Science News (December 21, 2019, / January 4, 2020) reported on proof that antineutrinos and neutrinos violate parity. The oscillation of the two kinds of neutrinos is not the same. Neutrinos vibrate more rapidly than the mathematical predictions of what their frequency should be, and antineutrinos vibrate more slowly. Scientists don’t understand why these oscillations are different since they violate parity. The design of the building blocks of matter involves differences in oscillation frequencies, and that allows matter to exist.

Why does matter exist? We could state that with the old philosophical question, “Why is there something instead of nothing?” Those questions seem to be answered at least in part by our new understanding of matter and antimatter. A major point we need to make is that matter and antimatter start with an energy source. That energy source must be external to our dimension. When we consider the intricate design features, that source would seem to be God.

June 14, 2019June 13, 2019

Antimatter Research

Recent discoveries have caused those of us with backgrounds in physics to overhaul our thinking radically. This is especially true in quantum mechanics and how matter and energy interact in the creation. One of the most interesting areas has to do with antimatter research.

When energy is turned into matter, the products are matter and antimatter. When antimatter and ordinary matter are combined, they destroy each other, producing energy. The process can be described by the famous formula E = mc². But it is far more complex than the simple change from one form to another.

One of the basic experiments we do in high school physics is called the double slit experiment. When light shines on a screen with two slits in it, bands called interference patterns are produced on a screen on the side opposite the light. That shows that light has wave properties even though it has properties of particles. This effect not only happens with visible light, but also with radio waves, Xrays, ultraviolet, and infrared.

In 1924 an experiment by French physicist Louis de Broglie showed that electrons also produce an interference pattern. That means that electrons have wave properties like light. On May 3, 2019, Dr. Marco Giammarchi of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Milan announced that a team of scientists has discovered that positrons, which are antimatter particles, also produce interference patterns. What this means is that antimatter has both particle and wave properties. There is a whole left-handed world out there to match the right-handed world in which we live, and antimatter research will tell us more about it.

All kinds of new understandings are coming from this antimatter research. It may be the answer to clean energy sources – the ultimate fuel that leaves nothing behind except energy. It also is the discovery of another tool of God described in the simple explanation, “In the beginning, God created the heaven (space) and the earth (matter) – Genesis 1:1. Read Proverbs 8:22-23 for more.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

June 9, 2017June 12, 2019

Quantum Mechanics, Galileo, and Design

One of the great frontier areas of physics today is quantum mechanics. This area has to do with the very small. It deals with the construction of electric charge, mass, gravity, and how matter behaves in space/time. Things that happen in quantum mechanics sometimes seem to violate the fundamental laws of physics.

One of the major concepts of quantum mechanics is simultaneity. The New Physics Dictionary says “Computational scientists wonder at the thought that a quantum system could exist in a superposition of two different conditions or locations simultaneously–this possibility is, in fact, being realized in the exploding field of quantum computation.” In other words, in the quantum world, one thing can be in two places at the same time.

Common sense tells us that in our everyday experience a particle cannot be in two different widely-separated locations at the same time. That does not seem to apply to subatomic particles. What works in the world in which we live where time and space have specific boundaries, does not work in the subatomic world of quarks, neutrinos, mesons, and antimatter.

As scientists conduct more research, it has become obvious that most of the standard gravitational rules still apply in the quantum area. Scientists reporting on arXiv.org have announced that their studies show the equivalence principle applies to quantum particles just as it did when Galileo showed that gravity works the same on all objects no matter what their mass. A 50-ton boulder and a bowling ball dropped from the same elevation will hit the ground at the same time. When scientists conduct similar experiments with quantum particles, the same result takes place. They have also found that the conservation laws of energy are consistent in the quantum area.

The Mind that invented matter and formulated space/time used fixed principles and laws to design the charge and the mass. The result is a system that works to make life possible on this planet. Whether we look up or down, we find that a wonder-working hand has gone before.
Reference: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/key-einstein-principle-survives-quantum-test
–John N. Clayton © 2017