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To cosmic shreds, I say! (thelemmy.club)
submitted 2 weeks ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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[-] DevDave@piefed.social 4 points 2 weeks ago

I thought Madam Wu's experiment provided a starting point for explaining why the universe exists despite its best efforts to annihilate itself. Disclaimer, I have passing interest in physics but I have no formal education on any of it.

[-] naeap@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 weeks ago

Don't know about that
Can you provide me some more words to search for it or even a link?

[-] DevDave@piefed.social 5 points 2 weeks ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_experiment

Wu was one of the few female physicist on the Manhattan project. Absolutely amazing what she accomplished despite having the double whammy of having to overcome racism as well as sexism. Currently on my watch list is a veritasm video that talks about her experiment.

[-] naeap@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 weeks ago

Ah, I see, thank you!

[-] sbeak@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah, CP violation is a big focus when it comes to the research of baryogenesis, the theoretical process that produced the baryon asymmetry! Her experiment established that parity symmetry (P) can be broken through weak interactions, and later experiments showed that the combined CP symmetry (charge conjugation + parity) can also be broken, again through weak force shenanigans.

CP violation is one of the three Sakharov conditions (which were proposed by and named after Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov) of dynamic baryogenesis, as it would mean that matter and antimatter can behave differently in certain processes. If they behaved identically, no asymmetry would be produced and they would both annihilate. However, there was one extra baryon for every million antibaryons (we know this through measurements of the CMB and the quantities of light elements produced in Big Bang nucleosynthesis), and this slight difference allowed matter to dominate the universe.

this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2026
532 points (98.4% liked)

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