Given: the observable universe is matter predominant.
Given: observable features of matter and antimatter subtly differ (CP violation and all that jazz)
Standard conclusion: Matter and antimatter are different for some reason not predicted by any model, and these differences allowed more matter to survive creation.
Question: Is this the only possible explanation for the above given observations? Or COULD matter and antimatter actually exist in true mirror symmetry - equal amounts, equal properties - but differentially oriented in n-dimensional space such that their projections into the 4D spacetime that we readily observe explains the apparent asymmetries?
Question: Would this hypothesis suggest any testable (observable) phenomenae? (If it doesn’t it isn’t really worth any consideration.)
As a WAG I’d like to toss out quantum probability. We hypothesize that the universe began as some sort of incomprehensibly small “ball” of energy, and that, let’s say, during expansion there was about a 50-50 change for matter or antimatter to occur. Now, that is just the probability. Should any miniscule proportion of matter actually come out ahead, just by chance, it may seem like a big thing to us but to the universe it was just rolling a 1000000 on a die instead of a 999999. “Dang, almost made fifty-fifty odds.”
So, IMO, no—there is no particular reason why matter dominates. Jes’ happened.
To add my bit… With current theories, there should be an equal amount of matter and antimatter. This is a bit of an embarrassment, but here’s a couple of possible explanations.
There IS an equal amount. Due to quantum fluctuations, however, there’s an excess of matter in the visible universe, implying a needed excess of antimatter in that part of the universe that we can’t see.
The standard lore is that with a so called Grand Unified Theory (unifying the electroweak and the strong force), there is the possibility for matter and antimatter to decay (technically, baryon number is not conserved). Hence, given a few other assumptions, you can get what we see. Alas, GUT is not conclusively demonstrated, so who knows if this is right?
I know that you are not “stringy” but can you follow the visualization of fundamental particles as n-dimensional strings rather than points and comment on the visualization of differential orientation in n-dimensional space rather than as quantum fluctuations?
erislover,
I don’t have a good answer. Hmmm.
scotth,
N-dimnsional mirror images are different shapes which might have different preferred orientations and preferred paths within the space.
As usual, we can only visualize these things by reducing dimensionality and analogizing: Picture your hands as an example of objects that are 2D mirror symmetric. Overlap them and draw a line through the middle somewhere. On that line color red all the spots that where your right hand intersects with that line, and blue all the left hand intersects. Are the lines the same? No. There is a different pattern of red than blue, depending on how you overlapped your hands and where you 1D space intersected with the overlapping 2D spaces.
Now I cannot even visualize an object that is 11D or even 5D. I can’t even create a mind’s eye of a 3D object’s miiror twin in all 3 dimensions (again, the hand is 2D mirror symmetric) But the analogy should hold even more so in many dimensioned space.
The only testable bits that I can think of is a prediction that measurable gravity would be much more than observable mass in the observable universe (gravity permeates all branes) which of course is another postdiction, because we already know that that is true.
Sorry it’s taken me so long to reply, DSeid. To be honest, I can’t really follow much of what the string people say. I understand well enough what they mean when they suggest that a particle might be an excitation of a field in N dimensions, but… shrugs They tend to lose me at some point. I’ve been thinking about it, but I still tend to believe that the answer I suggested as #2 in my last post is the most likely. Who knows what it actually is, though?
Though I like to think about string theory sometimes, I cannot grasp how it accounts for quantum probabilistic effects, which are already predicted and measured to what i understand to be a startling degree of accuracy.
As a layman with no particular expertise in advanced physics, I must say that I find g8rguy’s first hypothesis to be the preferred explanation in accordance with Occam’s Razor. It seems the most economical: little or no new physics seems to be required.
I must also express a fondness for erislover’s hypothesis for similar reasons.
As an aside for what it’s worth, isn’t it true that there’s a fairly new multi-dimensional physics that has little or nothing to do with string theory? I seem to recall that I briefly saw an article in Scientific American a while back that discussed this. However, it probably has no relevance to this discussion…
“Phenomena” is already plural. “Phenomenon” is the singular. There’s no such thing as “phenomenae” any more than there is such a thing as “datae” or quantae".
