From Symmetry Magazine:

According to theory, the big bang should have created matter and antimatter in equal amounts. When matter and antimatter meet, they annihilate, leaving nothing but energy behind. So in principle, none of us should exist.

But we do. And as far as physicists can tell, it’s only because, in the end, there was one extra matter particle for every billion matter-antimatter pairs. Physicists are hard at work trying to explain this asymmetry.

Here’s a nice follow up to yesterday’s post, Embrace Mystery and Discover Joy.  Scientists love to tell us how they’ve decoded the secrets of the universe.  Then they tell us that we shouldn’t even exist.

“The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.”

~J.B.S. Haldane