Think of an Anti-You(Matter and Anti-matter)

     Think about an Anti-you (Matter and Anti-matter)

Bizarre title isn't? Science is bizarre too

What is matter?

Matter is us; we are composed of centrally of atoms which have neutrons, protons and electrons which in turn has quarks (smallest particles discovered), hadrons etc. All of these are nothing but matter.
Word matter used in post can be substituted by proton,electron,neutron,quarks etc.

Anti-matter: it can be called as twin of matter; Anti matter has opposite charge to that of matter, rest all aspects (mass, spin etc.) are same for both. Every matter has it anti matter counterpart somewhere in our Universe.

How are they produced?

When we say space is empty, it literally is not empty but filled with huge amount of energy. Einstein’s famous equation E=MC² gives us idea about the conversion of matter and energy, matter and anti-matter pairs are produced from energy described above. Matter and Anti-matter must be produced in pairs so that law of conservation of energy is not broken.

Law of conservation of energy basically states that a charge (positive or negative alone) cannot be created or destroyed, however it can be created in matter and anti-

matter pairs (as charge of these two are exact opposites so net charge remains zero).

What happens when anti-matter and matter meet?

They certainly will not have enough time for a chat, they clash into each other violently and disappear leaving pure energy, and this energy is equal to amount of energy expended to create them. This process is called Annihilation of matter and Anti-matter.

Seconds after big bang

There should have been equal amounts of matter and anti-matter created as they are always created in pairs, if that is the case how are we still alive? Annihilation must’ve occurred long before formation of stars or galaxies yet we live in a matter dominated world.

Various theories are developed to account for this discrepancy, few of them are:

One pair in billions of matter Anti-matter pairs has survived this bulk annihilation; this one matter particle could’ve been accidentally separated from its counter-part (anti-matter) and these one in billion matter particles constitute the universe we know about.

Another theory says that a disturbance caused in fabric of space-time after big bang set off matter and anti-matter in opposite paths. According to this theory just like our world there could be an anti-matter world in some part of universe, it also says that anti-matter repels gravity (has not been proved) so we still exist. This allows us with a possibility of finding an Anti-You.

How real is anti-matter?????

Bananas produce anti-matter; they release one positron every 75 minutes due to decay of potassium.

Positron: anti-matter particle of electron, it has positive charge unlike electron but has same mass, spin, quantum numbers.

But all anti-matter produced is short-lived as it annihilates immediately on contact with matter and we live in matter dominated universe which just increases chances of annihilation. Anti-matter is a future fuel source as a gram of it can produce energy equivalent to that of nuclear bomb, backdrop we currently face is in production and storage of anti-matter.

MATTER PARTICLES	ANTI-MATTER
Quarks	Anti-quarks
Electron	Positron
Proton	Anti-proton
Neutron	Since it is charge less, its anti-matter particles is itself
Leptons	Anti-leptons

It may not be advisable to wish of meeting your counter-part (anti-you) for it will end up in annihilation.

General Relativity simplified

GENERAL RELATIVITY

This theory spins around gravity; it is like an extension to special relativity by counting gravity too. Einstein developed it fundamentally based on equivalence principle

EQUIVALENCE PRINCIPLE:

Imagine being locked up in a closed container like an elevator with opaque walls and you are given a tennis ball. As you bounce the ball it touches floor of elevator with acceleration of 9.8m/s (earth’s gravity) as anticipated.

Now your elevator has a fuel tank or you were actually in a rocket, which is accelerating at 9.8m/s (32 feet/sec). When ball is bounced at the moment, what would happen? Would it be same as before?      

Yes to you it would just appear to hit the bottom as before because your body is also accelerating with 9.8m/s. But for an outside observer, it would be the floor accelerating at 9.8m/s towards the ball.

You are shielded inside and you cannot tell if its gravitational frame’s work or accelerating frame’s work that causes ball to touch the floor. In other more scientific and confusing words: laws of physics are same in accelerating (non-inertial) and gravitational frame (inertial) of references, this is called equivalence principle.

Combination of equivalence principle with its analogue in pure mathematics leads to formation of Einstein’s theory of gravitation. (This alone deserves another blog post)

GENERAL RELATIVITY: back to main topic

Einstein’s mathematics consists of 4 dimensions (3 spatial dimensions and 1 time dimension) also called space-time relations. He said “space itself is curved”.

Imagine a rock placed on a spread blanket, there is a depression caused by placing the rock, now a marble shot into blanket will follow an elliptical path around the rock. In analogy, blanket is the space-time fabric, this distortion is formed by matter is called warping of space-time (curving of space time). Imagine is a reference to warping

Proving this:

Light always chooses the least time taking path (hence it’s always straight line), when passing objects as sun (heavy objects that cause warping) light beams bend and the shortest distance it chose being a curved line, articulate us that space-time fabric itself is curved. This phenomena of bending of light is called gravitational lensing

Due to gravitational lensing of sun, light from distant stars is bent and we receive multiple apparent images of them. This was proved during 1919 eclipse; measures of distances of stars were taken at night (absence of sun) and during eclipse (so that sun’s light wouldn’t overwhelm star’s light). Observations obtained were close to Einstein’s theory predicted values. Einstein’s theory overcame, many limitations in newton’s predictions, though it had its own set of difficulties in mathematics domain.

E=MC²

Heard about it too often! But what does it signify?

As Energy is supplied to a particle, it increases its velocity thereby increasing its kinetic energy and mass. This extra mass emanates from energy supplied, it’s also another perspective into saying speed of light is not achievable; as the particle reach speeds close to speed of light, energy supplied is converted to mass gained by the particle.

E=MC² implies

MATTER is condensed form of ENERGY, a storage unit of energy. 

Insignificant amount of matter can generate loads of energy as mass is multiplied by speed of light squared (which is a huge number).

In conclusion: As matter-energy is more ─> curvature of space-time fabric increases hence more the gravitational tug.                    

 Einstein’s relativity theories led to foundation of principles behind motion of black holes, stars, big bang etc.