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In 1928, the UK physicist Paul Dirac stumbled on an equation that seemed to show that, for every particle, there’s another, nearly identical particle with an opposite electric charge. Just four years later, the US physicist Carl David Anderson proved Dirac’s prediction correct by capturing a picture of a ‘positron’ – a particle with the same size and mass as an electron, but with a positive charge rather than a negative one. This rapid series of developments unlocked one of the most momentous and enduring conundrums of physics: if particles with opposite electric charges annihilate one another when they meet, why is there any matter left? And if there’s no more matter than antimatter in existence, then the Universe should have annihilated itself soon after the Big Bang – yet, here we are. This brief animation breaks down this extraordinary, nearly century-long science puzzle, detailing some of the surprising explanations posited by contemporary physicists.
Animator: Eoin Duffy
Writers: Justin Weinstein, Brian Greene
Websites: World Science Festival, Studio Belly
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Ageing and death
Death is a trip – how new research links near-death and DMT experiences
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The environment
Photographs of rainforests dissolving in acid strike a beautiful note of warning
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Technology and the self
Adaptive technologies have helped Stephen Hawking, and many more, find their voice
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Ecology and environmental sciences
Experience the dazzling displays that fireflies create when humans are far away
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Ecology and environmental sciences
To renew Yosemite, California should embrace a once-outlawed Indigenous practice
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Music
Before the Beatles dropped acid, a BBC workshop was creating far-out sounds
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Biology
In the jungle of Suriname, Maria Sibylla Merian discovered insect metamorphosis
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Neuroscience
The brain repurposed our sense of physical distance to understand social closeness
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Physics
Spectacular fractal patterns emerge when electricity meets a wooden surface
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