CERN Seeks to Solve Mystery of Missing Anti-Matter
The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), which recently shocked physics by reporting particles moving faster than light, hopes to crack one of the greatest mysteries of the cosmos.
CERN announced the new endeavor Wednesday at an international forum of prominent physicists.
Reuters reported that the experiment hopes to determine why there is so little left of the anti-matter believed to have been present in quantities equal to matter at the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago but strangely disappeared.
The Big Bang theory is an attempt to explain the creation of the universe.
Findings in physics and astronomy have proven beyond reasonable doubt that the universe indeed had a beginning.
The CERN particle physics research center in Switzerland announced that the program will be carried out with an Extra Low Energy Antiproton Ring (ELENA) which is expected to deliver huge amounts of miniature anti-proton articles by 2016.
The conference gathers scientists from the U.S., Japan, Canada, Sweden, France, Germany, Denmark and the UK.
"This is a big progress for anti-matter physics," stated Walter Oelert, one of the pioneers at CERN.
Anti-matter was discovered in the 1930s after years of hypotheses and was taken in instantly into science fiction with its capability to destroy any ordinary matter that it gets into contact with.
Matter is then transformed into instantaneous energy, which has resulted into conjectures that such reactions can stimulate very fast spacecraft for travelling between the stars or be adopted as an activation system for nuclear armaments.
This experiment follows the recent amazing announcement by CERN of neutrino beams that reportedly travelled faster than light more than 700 kilometers through the crust of the earth from the CERN's particle accelerator to Italy.
Einstein's theory of special relativity may be subject to re-evaluation if the experiment is confirmed.
Three researchers, Radek Wojtak, Steen Hansen and Jens Hjorth have published in the journal Nature the results of observations regarding faraway galactic clusters.
"The clusters, 8,000 light-years distant, have such immense gravity that general relativity predicts it will affect light emerging from them," they said.