ALICE detects the conversion of lead into gold at the Large Hadron Collider

if each gold atom were on average several centimetres from its nearest neighbour, one might pass one’s hand through the ‘sheet’ without touching any gold at all. Similarly, there is an ultimate lump or ‘atom’ of light, a photon.

In such a scenario all antimatter would subsequently have annihilated itself with matter in the dense primeval gas, inundating the universe with high-energy photons. But there would be a small relic of matter left, no more than one part in a billion, which, almost as an afterthought, would make up the roughly 1050 tons of matter of which you and I

In such a scenario all antimatter would subsequently have annihilated itself with matter in the dense primeval gas, inundating the universe with high-energy photons. But there would be a small relic of matter left, no more than one part in a billion, which, almost as an afterthought, would make up the roughly 1050 tons of matter of which you and I

Electrons are so small that some say they have no effective size—they’re less than a thousand-trillionth of a centimeter across—and

Electrons are so small that some say they have no effective size—they’re less than a thousand-trillionth of a centimeter across—and