Universe's Existence May Be Explained by New Material
A special ceramic may help researchers explain why all matter in the universe didn't annihilate shortly after the big bang.
The material was designed to detect a theorized but unproven property of electrons, subatomic particles with a negative charge that orbit the centers of atoms.
(Related: "Proton Smaller Than Thought—May Rewrite Laws of Physics.")
If this "new" property of electrons exists, scientists say, it would help explain the current imbalance between matter and antimatter in the universe.
"In the early stages of the universe, everything should have been symmetric," said study co-author Marjana Ležaić, a materials scientist at the Forschungszentrum Jülich Institute of Solid State Research in Germany.
Current theories of particle physics state that
