The Antimatter Mystery: Eric Cornell Breaks It Down

What happens when matter and antimatter meet? According to Nobel Prize-winning physicist Eric Cornell, they instantly annihilate each other—not in a puff of smoke, but in a flash of light. So if matter and antimatter destroy each other on contact, why is there anything left in the universe? In this video, Eric Cornell unpacks one of the biggest mysteries in physics: why do we only see matter around us and not antimatter, and why didn’t all the matter and antimatter created in the Big Bang annihilate each other, leaving behind nothing but light? If that had happened, we’d be living in a very empty universe—no stars, no planets, no people. So what tipped the balance? Why is there something instead of nothing? Join us to explore this cosmic mystery and dive into the strange world of antimatter.