Why the universe exists has baffled the scientific community for a while now β but an experiment at the Large Hadron Collider LHC has yielded results that mean the answers may be just around the corner. The problem for physicists is that in the first second of the Big Bang matter - that's all the stuff around us - and anti-matter existed in equal quantities, but the anti-matter disappeared in an instant afterwards and no one knows why.
This experiment is at the wild frontier of physics and if the research is found to be correct could alter our understanding of the cosmos. Anti-matter is simply matter, but with an opposite charge. Should matter and anti-matter ever meet, the result is explosive to say the least. Pushing the boundaries: The LHC has been running experiments on anti-matter that could herald 'new physics'. A joint Nasa-Japan search for it in the s using an array of sophisticated upper-atmosphere sensors, for instance, drew a complete blank.
The experiment at the LHC saw particles smashed together at close to the speed of light and their decays analysed by the LHCb detector, which is specifically designed for this job.
The collisions were so violent that anti-matter was created, but the super-computers at the LHC noted that D-meson particles that were in the mix decayed at different rates to anti-D meson particles. Scientists see the results as a major clue as to why the universe as we know it actually exists. The search for the mysterious 'God particle', meanwhile, goes on. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.
TUI Booking. Privacy Policy Feedback. Large Hadron Collider may not have found the 'God particle' Size matters: The LHC may have unearthed one of the universe's secrets. Share this article Share. Share or comment on this article: Large Hadron Collider explains how the universe can exist.
