Antimeson File

Elara adjusted her glasses. On the screen, a neutral B-meson was doing something impossible. It wasn’t just decaying; it was . One moment it was matter, the next it was antimatter, flipping back and forth trillions of times per second.

That tiny "longer" was the secret of the universe. According to the laws of physics, the Big Bang should have created equal amounts of matter and antimatter, leading to an immediate, total annihilation that left the universe empty and dark. But something had tipped the scales. Something had favored matter by just one part in a billion. antimeson

Elara sat back, the blue light of the monitors reflecting in her eyes. The antimeson was gone, decayed into a spray of more stable particles, but its brief, flickering life had proven that the universe was slightly, beautifully broken. And in that crack, everything we know had found a place to grow. Elara adjusted her glasses