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Higgs Boson – Why It’s Called the God Particle

In 2012, the world’s biggest physics experiment made headlines: scientists at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider confirmed the discovery of the Higgs boson . The media called it the “God Particle” — but what is it really? The Higgs boson is linked to the Higgs field , an invisible energy field that fills the universe. Without this field, particles like electrons and quarks wouldn’t have mass — they’d just zoom around at the speed of light, unable to form atoms, stars, or people. Detecting the Higgs was incredibly hard. It’s unstable, decaying into other particles almost instantly. To create it, scientists smashed protons together at nearly the speed of light, sifting through billions of collisions to find a handful of events that matched its predicted signature. The nickname “God Particle” was popularized by physicist Leon Lederman to draw attention (and sell books), but many scientists dislike it because it’s misleading — the Higgs doesn’t have anything to do with religion. Its discove...
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The Science of Cosmic Rays – Visitors from Deep Space

 Every second, particles from outer space bombard Earth at nearly the speed of light. These are cosmic rays , and they’ve been fascinating scientists for over a century. Cosmic rays are mostly protons and atomic nuclei accelerated by extreme cosmic events — exploding stars, black holes, and perhaps even more exotic sources. When these high-energy particles hit Earth’s atmosphere, they collide with air molecules and create showers of secondary particles like muons, electrons, and pions. Scientists detect cosmic rays using cloud chambers , scintillation detectors , and even space-based telescopes. These observations teach us about the most powerful accelerators in the universe — nature’s own version of the Large Hadron Collider. But cosmic rays aren’t just a curiosity. They can damage spacecraft electronics and pose a health risk to astronauts on long space missions. That’s why NASA and other space agencies study them carefully. Next time you’re outside, remember — you’re being h...
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Why the Universe Prefers Matter Over Antimatter

  When the universe was born in the Big Bang, it should have created matter and antimatter in equal amounts. But look around — the stars, planets, you, and me are all made of matter. So… where did all the antimatter go? This puzzle is called baryon asymmetry , and it’s one of the biggest mysteries in physics. According to our best theories, each matter particle has an antimatter twin: the electron has the positron, the proton has the antiproton, and so on. When matter and antimatter meet, they annihilate into pure energy. If they were created equally, they should have destroyed each other completely, leaving behind only light. But clearly, that didn’t happen. One possible explanation is CP violation — a tiny imbalance in the laws of physics that makes matter behave just a bit differently than antimatter. This idea was first seen in experiments with kaons in 1964 and has been studied ever since. The conditions that could explain this, called the Sakharov conditions , involve in...
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The Positron: Antimatter’s First Discovery

  How a mistake in theory led to one of physics’ greatest finds In the 1920s, the electron was king. It was the first subatomic particle ever discovered, and physicists believed they had a pretty good grip on its properties — until a bold new theory flipped everything upside down. That theory was Paul Dirac’s equation.  A Negative Surprise In 1928, Paul Dirac tried to combine quantum mechanics with Einstein’s special relativity. The result was the Dirac equation , which accurately predicted the behavior of electrons moving close to the speed of light. But it had a strange feature: it predicted not just electrons with positive energy , but also possible solutions with negative energy . That didn’t make sense at first — negative energy seemed impossible. Instead of dismissing the equation, Dirac made a bold proposal: maybe these negative energy solutions corresponded to a new particle.  The Birth of Antimatter This new particle would be just like the electron — same mass, s...
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Location: Borivali West, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
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Why didn’t matter and antimatter annihilate everything?

  The Antimatter Mystery in the Big Bang We know from Einstein’s famous equation — E = mc² — that energy can turn into matter, and matter can turn back into energy. In the first few microseconds after the Big Bang, this is exactly what was happening: an extremely hot, dense soup of energy created particles and antiparticles in equal amounts. But here’s the puzzle: if the universe started with equal amounts of matter and antimatter, why do we see only matter today? Antimatter seems to have vanished almost entirely, even though it should’ve annihilated all the matter in a giant cosmic fireball, leaving behind just energy. Clearly, something tipped the scales. The Need for Asymmetry Physicists believe there must have been a tiny imbalance — maybe for every billion antimatter particles, there were a billion and one matter particles. That extra one in a billion is what survived after all the annihilations. But how did this asymmetry arise?  Enter CP Violation One explanat...
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    How Antimatter Could Power the Future (If We Could Afford It) By Dhiaan Motta Imagine fueling a spaceship with just a few grams of something so powerful it could take you to Mars — or destroy a city. That’s not science fiction. That’s antimatter . We’ve seen antimatter in movies like Angels & Demons , but here’s the truth: antimatter is very real, and it could change the world. The only problem? It’s the most expensive substance on Earth — and maybe in the universe.  So, What Is Antimatter? Let’s go back to basics. Antimatter is like matter’s mirror twin. For every particle — like an electron — there’s an opposite: the positron . Same mass, opposite charge. When matter and antimatter collide, they annihilate into pure energy . According to Einstein’s famous equation E = mc² , even a tiny amount of mass can turn into a huge amount of energy. Since antimatter-matter annihilation turns all the mass into energy (not just part, like in nuclear reactions), it’s...
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Location: Borivali West, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
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Why I’m Starting a Science Blog (and Why Antimatter Keeps Me Up at Night) By Dhiaan Motta

Hi! I’m Dhiaan, a 9th-grade student and an unapologetic science nerd. While most people scroll through music or memes before bed, I’m often stuck thinking about particles that shouldn't exist — like antimatter. Strange, right? But to me, science isn’t just something you study in school — it’s a way to make sense of reality. And honestly, reality is much weirder (and cooler) than we’re taught. That’s why I started this blog. 🌌 A Space for Curiosity I wanted to create a space to share the questions I can’t stop asking. Some are big: Why did the universe choose matter over antimatter? Others are more grounded: Can we actually use antimatter as fuel? And some are just fun: What would happen if you fell into a black hole — and could still blog about it? This blog will be my science notebook, idea vault, and digital telescope — where I zoom in on physics, chemistry, the environment, and anything else that sparks my curiosity. ⚛️ So… What’s the Deal With Antimatter? Let me give you a p...
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Location: Borivali West, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
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