13 Jul 2023

Astronomers like to answer the big questions ... and they don’t get much bigger than this.

• In the very first microseconds of the Big Bang, something strange happened. Matter somehow outnumbered antimatter and kept the fledgling universe from annihilating itself.
• This break with conventional physics is known as the “parity symmetry violation.”
• A new study from the University of Florida analyzed a tremendous amount of cosmological data using a supercomputer to find compelling evidence that this parity symmetry violation explains why everything...well...is.

Why does anything exist? Why, in any given space, is there something rather than nothing? It’s a question that has been pondered by scientists, philosophers, and theologians for millennia. No one would be surprised if, in the very beginnings of Homo sapiens’ reign on Earth, our hunter-gatherer ancestors looked to the stars and asked “why?”

From this fundamental question sprung religion, culture, and our most up-to-date cosmology. But the question still remains: why are we here? Well, scientists may not be close to unpacking the philosophical side of that question, but the science side is becoming more and more clear. A new research paper published in Physical Review Letters shows that scientists from the University of Florida and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found actual evidence of the “parity symmetry violation” that could help explain why our universe is filled with, well, everything.

“I’ve always been interested in big questions about the universe. What is the beginning of the universe? What are the rules under which it evolves? Why is there something rather than nothing?” Zachary Slepian, a UF astronomy professor and study supervisor, said in a press release. “This work addresses those big questions.”