Antimatter

 

Antimatter sounds so science fiction, but there really is such a thing.  Antimatter is the exact opposite of matter; all the electrical charges are reversed.  Electrons, which as matter are always negatively charged, have a positive charge for antimatter.  Protons always have a positive charge as matter, but have a negative charge in antimatter.  Not that anything about antimatter is a big deal in our daily lives.  There isn't a bunch of antimatter floating around us (that we know of; although there should be a lot of it in our universe somewhere, we just don't know where).  Everything we see and know is matter.  Antimatter is a necessary ingredient in our laws of physics though.  Our calculations about the interchangeability between energy and matter require it, and in fact experimentalists have proven that it does exist, at least momentarily, by creating anti-protons and anti-electrons.  The biggest problem with creating antimatter though is that when matter and antimatter come in contact, they immediately annihilate each other and you're back to where you started, with a bunch of energy.  You can't create some antimatter and just stick it in a jar.

 

Anyway, I think there is general agreement that all the electrical laws of physics apply to antimatter in reverse, but there is another question to ask.  Do *all* the laws of physics apply to antimatter in reverse?  What about gravity?  How profound, and possibly hilarious, is that?  Does antimatter fall up?

 

That may seem like a silly question, does antimatter fall up, and we might think we know the answer, but you never really know the answer until you figure out a way to verify it.  So the current challenge is to create antimatter and figure out how to preserve it long enough that it's response to gravity can be verified.  (I hope it falls up.  😊)