It's time to talk about some of the more exotic ideas of physics. High Science tackles dark matter, dark energy,  and antimatter. In this episode we explore the edge of our current understanding of the universe.

Topics Discussed:

Dark Matter

How it was discovered: galaxies didn't rotate as we expected them to

Fritz Zwicky: Theorized dark matter and called people spherical bastards

Ideas about what dark matter could be:

WIMPs - Weakly Interacting Massive Particles

MACHOs - Massive Astrophysical Compact Halo Objects

Axions - Slow moving, weakly interacting particles

Kaluza-Klein Particles: There's a 5th dimension curled in on itself (???)

Gravitinos - Arises from super-symmetry

Antimatter

Fundamental particles with opposite electric charge (the anti electron is the positron)

Paul Dirac theorized antimatter and it was later observed

Anti-hydrogen was created!

The issue with experimenting with antimatter: if it touches ordinary matter in annihilates and releases a bunch of energy

A quick rundown on quantum field theory

Tangent about black holes

Dark Energy

Ordinary matter makes up 5% of the universe, dark matter makes up 25% of the universe, dark energy makes up 70% of the universe!!!

The universe is expanding and the culprit is dark energy

The cosmological constant: Einstein's self proclaimed "biggest blunder" ended up being super useful for us

The fundamental paradigm shifts of science

The geometry of the universe

Tangent about lead, the age of the earth, and half-lives

The mystery of antimatter: where is it all? Why is everything made of ordinary matter?