Asymmetry

[vaneramos]

I started reading about multidimensional theory, and ended up sucked into the black hole of cosmology.

High school and first-year chemistry never touched on quarks or neutrinos. I always flipped past those articles on subatomic particles in Scientific American. Now suddenly they're interesting because I'm avoiding something else.

Maybe I'm digging for the meaning of life again, scrutinizing the creation of the universe for the footprint of God, or absence of it. One thing physicists so far cannot explain is the baryon asymmetry. Simply put, matter and antimatter should have cancelled each other out in the earliest nanoseconds of time, but somehow the universe ended up made almost entirely of matter. A natural explanation will most likely be found, but nothing is certain.

We're still far from knowing whether the universe is closed, destined to collapse on itself in 100 billion years, or open, expanding forever and dissipating to a cold death. Protons might inevitably decay, bringing the baryon number back to equilibrium, in 10³⁶ years. Otherwise, all matter will decay to iron in 10¹⁵⁰⁰ years.

It's a bleak prospect, yet more entertaining than imminent problems like global warming, loss of petroleum reserves, poverty, and the emergence of drug-resistant diseases.

Comments

[that-dang-otter.livejournal.com]

It's a bleak prospect, yet more entertaining than imminent problems like global warming, loss of petroleum reserves, poverty, and the emergence of drug-resistant diseases.

Which, in turn, are more entertaining than one's own mortality. I am convinced that all these concerns are, in part, a proxy for that one most incomprehensible fact.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Yes, you said a long time ago that facing your own mortality left you free to live your life more fully. One cause of my anxiety seems to be the thought that there's not enough time to do everything I want, which paradoxically holds me back from doing simple, necessary things. Fortunately, that predicament shows signs of unraveling. More frequently of late, when facing certain challenges, I tell myself I have nothing to lose. We'll see....