Veritasium
April 5, 2026
TL;DR
CERN produces antimatter to solve physics' biggest mystery: why the universe contains more matter than antimatter, despite the Big Bang creating them in equal amounts—a clue that could reveal entirely new physics beyond our current understanding.
“When antimatter and matter meet, they annihilate, turning nearly 100% of their combined mass into pure energy. This is via E equals mc squared. It is the most violent process physics allows.”
— Casper Segments (Veritasium)
“For every billion antimatter particles and billion matter particles there were in the early universe, when they annihilated, they did so almost perfectly. But there was one, one out of a billion matter particles that somehow survived.”
— Casper Segments
“Everything we see around us today is a descendant of those lucky one in a billion particles. Every person, animal, jungle, and ocean... is made up of one of those lucky one in a billion particles.”
— Casper Segments
“If you enter while it is working, you die in 10 seconds. You cannot escape. You melt from inside.”
— GBAR researcher (discussing tungsten target radiation)
1. The Promise and Problem of Antimatter
Introduction to antimatter's destructive power: when antimatter meets matter, 100% of mass converts to energy via E=mc². CERN produces antimatter at enormous cost ($100+ billion per gram), but the question remains: why?
2. Dirac's Equation and the Birth of Antimatter Theory
Paul Dirac's equation uniting quantum mechanics and special relativity predicted both positive and negative energy solutions, leading to the theoretical prediction of antimatter (the positron) before its experimental discovery in 1933.
3. Quantum Field Theory and the Asymmetry Mystery
Particles are excitations of quantum fields; antimatter should exist as mirror excitations. However, the Big Bang should have produced equal matter and antimatter, which would annihilate completely—yet the universe is filled with matter.
4. The Big Bang Radiation Catastrophe
In the early universe, equal particle-antiparticle pairs were created and annihilated. Only one in a billion matter particles survived. This extreme asymmetry (requiring explanation) is the foundation for all visible matter in the cosmos.
5. The Search for Mirror Universes and CPT Symmetry
Early attempts to explain asymmetry suggested hidden antimatter regions or mirror universes, but sky surveys ruled these out. CPT symmetry—a cornerstone of special relativity—must be preserved, constraining any solution.
6. Parity Violation and Weak Interactions
Chien-Shiung Wu's 1956 cobalt-60 experiment discovered parity violation in weak nuclear forces, overturning beliefs in fundamental symmetries and opening doors to asymmetry explanations.
7. Building the Antimatter Factory
CERN accelerates protons to 99.93% light speed and smashes them into iridium targets, producing 40 million antiprotons every two minutes. These are decelerated and trapped using superconducting Penning traps at near absolute zero.
8. Creating Antihydrogen and Cold Antimatter
Multiple experiments create antihydrogen atoms by merging antiprotons and positrons, then study their properties. GBAR aims to cool antihydrogen ions to 10 microkelvin to measure gravity on antimatter with 1% precision.
9. Portable Antimatter and Future Distribution
The BASE experiment developed portable Penning traps that store antiprotons for 614+ days. CERN plans to distribute trapped antimatter to research institutions worldwide, democratizing antimatter research.
10. Scaling Antimatter and Real-World Perspective
Despite decades of production, CERN has made only a trillionth of a gram; creating 1/8 gram would take longer than the universe's age. Humans naturally produce positrons via radioactive decay (180 per hour).