Antimatter: Does It Really Matter?

Antimatter is back in the headlines! First, an article called; "Antimatter Breakthrough -- Electron is Stunningly Spherical, Scientists Discover"  was emailed to me on May 26th by a colleague. However, that was just the beginning. A few days ago I received a phone call saying that Antimatter is back in the news again but this time it's a huge deal. A group of scientists have held antimatter in place for over 15 minutes. Something we thought was impossible. With the direction this research is going, impossible is nothing. Tom Chivers from The Telegraph out of The UK in his article, "Cern, Alpha and antimatter storage: why antimatter should matter to us" said, "The news that scientists can capture and store antimatter could have a profound effect on our understanding of the universe."

From Faith Science;

A long time ago, when our universe was still in its earliest birthing throes, matter and antimatter were colliding and annihilating each other out of existence constantly. This process slowed down as our universe gradually cooled, but there should have been equal parts matter and antimatter—and there weren’t. Instead, there were slightly more matter particles than antimatter.

— Antimatter Matters: FERMILAB Glimpses “Toe of God” by Jennifer Quellette, Discovery News, May 31, 2010

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines antimatter as “a form of matter in which the electrical charge or other property of the particle is the reverse of that in the usual matter of our universe.” For instance, the antimatter counterpart of an electron is a positron and of a proton is an anti-proton. In ultra high-speed collisions, like those produced during the Big Bang, in the sun and in particle accelerators, antimatter is created. In addition, the decay of radioactive material results in the production of antimatter, which is the mechanism used in Positron Emission Tomography, or PET brain scans.

They usually don’t last long because once they collide with their matter counterparts, they annihilate and produce energy. On September 29, 2003, Robert Roy Britt, senior science writer on Space.com in “The Reality of Antimatter” said, “Antimatter has tremendous energy potential, if it could ever be harnessed. A solar flare in July 2002 created about a pound of antimatter, or half a kilo, according to new NASA-led research. That’s enough to power the United States for two days.”

One of physic’s foundation stones is the concept of a symmetrical universe. Everything has its mirror opposite, like humans’ left and right hands. As schoolchildren learn, Newton said every action has an equal and opposite reaction. “A good example is the Big Bang,” Lykken said, putting his colleague’s discovery into context. “The universe began as a perfectly symmetrical object, a ball of energy.” The problem lies in what happened next. That energy condensed into matter but also its opposite, antimatter.

The two being mutually destructive, they should have canceled each other out. Instead, Lykken noted, matter joined together in ever larger concentrations—nuclei, atoms, stars, galaxies. Fermilab test throws off more matter than antimatter and this matters

—Particle collision thought to replicate Big Bang forces, may help explain how things exist by Ron Grossman, Chicago Tribune, May 29, 2010

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Genesis 1:1 nkjv

Sometimes the most profound answers to life’s most puzzling questions are quite simple. What happened in the beginning? God! He happened. Not only was he there in the beginning; he created it. The Big Bang is a solid scientific theory. Every new discovery points toward the beginning of life as we know it. We can’t pretend that it didn’t happen and reject the facts. Researchers have dedicated their lives to providing us with the information we need. They do their jobs and deserve all the accolades they receive for long hours of hard work. Nothing is wrong with scientific research. Problems only arise with the conclusions that are drawn by theorists with a secular agenda.

The deeper we get into our research on the Big Bang, the closer we get to the truth. One day, the theoretical group of the scientific community must admit what Christians know already: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” At the end of a relentless search for the beginning of existence is God. Christians believed it because the Bible said it, so it cost us much less energy, time, and money to draw the same conclusion. All the same, it’s important for many people out there to see tangible proof of the truth before they accept it. If researchers provide accurate data and theorists connect the dots, all will point toward God.