〈 Berger | Dillon 〉

Thank you for taking the time to explain! You say there *had* to be more matter than antimatter to begin with. But that's only true if both matter and antimatter are equally stable, right? So how do we know *that* has to be true?

As we understand it, antimatter is exactly like matter, just opposite charge. So there had to be more matter for there to be matter left over. Of course, figuring out why this happened is part of why physics exists! Which means looking into differences b/w them + other things.

So it's possible that there are other differences between matter and antimatter (other than charge) that account for why there is more of one than the other, but we simply haven't discovered them yet?

We have no idea. That's why we do this.

It’s possible that there could exist other quantum numbers (charge, color, etc) that are conserved at a higher energy scales.. but given the success of the standard model at ~10TeV it is unlikely that antimatter possesses additional properties

I really wish I understood all this stuff better. I have a high level understanding of what you folks do, but its hard to find any resources that go in more detail that dont require a degree in physics :-D

I agree it can get a bit jargony sometimes.. the main thing is that there are only a few properties that (anti) matter can have.. why? We measure (anti)matter all the time in the LHC.. as far as we can see, there are 3 fundamental forces (and hence 3 measurable properties)

Wait. Only three? I thought there were four! Electromagnetic, strong, weak, and gravity, right?