- #1
jnorman
- 316
- 0
I am a simple layman, but I hope one of you wizards can help me understand something here.
I just read the new article in Wired magazine on the problem of the missing antimatter, a topic I have read about before in several popular books on physics and cosmology, and I have a basic understanding of the issue.
In the article, they discuss a purported answer to why there is an abundance of matter and apparently no significant amount of antimatter- a radioactive process called neutrinoless double-beta decay where two neutrons turn into two protons and produces two electrons.
Now please forgive my ignorance, but it seems to me that to have a radioactive atom to begin with would require that you already have stars in which a radioactive atom could be created. For a star to form, the universe would have to have already progressed far beyond the time when the matter-antimatter balance was problematic. I do not see how the proposed decay process in the article could possibly account for the missing antimatter problem.
Can someone please enlighten me a bit on this? Thank you.
I just read the new article in Wired magazine on the problem of the missing antimatter, a topic I have read about before in several popular books on physics and cosmology, and I have a basic understanding of the issue.
In the article, they discuss a purported answer to why there is an abundance of matter and apparently no significant amount of antimatter- a radioactive process called neutrinoless double-beta decay where two neutrons turn into two protons and produces two electrons.
Now please forgive my ignorance, but it seems to me that to have a radioactive atom to begin with would require that you already have stars in which a radioactive atom could be created. For a star to form, the universe would have to have already progressed far beyond the time when the matter-antimatter balance was problematic. I do not see how the proposed decay process in the article could possibly account for the missing antimatter problem.
Can someone please enlighten me a bit on this? Thank you.