Technologies

Our universe isn’t supposed to exist — but we’re slowly learning why it does

Scientists test the strange phenomena of antimatter, using a rather musical experiment.

You’re probably familiar with the following story: 13.8 billion years ago, the Big Bang led to stars and galaxies, which led to planets and life, and eventually, to you and me. But there’s a glaring gap in this chronicle, an aperture so big, solving it would shake our knowledge of reality.

«If we pluck, in principle, the best physics theories … we would need to conclude that the universe, as we observe it, cannot exist,» said Stefan Ulmer, a physicist at the RIKEN-led Baryon Antibaryon Symmetry Experiment at the European Council for Nuclear Research.

But… here we are playing Wordle and paying taxes, so either our laws of physics are wrong or we’re missing massive pieces of the metaphysical puzzle.

Among the army of scientists looking for those pieces, Ulmer has spent years studying the seed of our universe’s existential crisis: antimatter. In a paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature, he reports an update: Antimatter doesn’t react to gravity any differently than normal matter does.

Don’t worry if that last bit completely flew over your head, it’ll all come together.

First, what is antimatter?

Everything from the sun to the device you’re reading this article on is made up of the normal matter we know and love, composed of atoms built with positive protons and negative electrons. The Big Bang gave rise to all this matter, and the rest is literally history.

Here’s the weird part: Our universe also holds a tiny amount of antimatter, composed of atoms built with negative protons and positive electrons. It’s like the Big Bang’s rebel child.

These two also have a rift. When they come into contact, they totally annihilate one another because of their opposite charges. Even when scientists create antimatter for experiments, the zippy particles must remain in a vacuum because an antimatter particle in a normal matter environment would immediately go «poof.»

This incompatibility dominoes down to a huge existential problem – and it’s not just that we can’t meet our antimatter counterpart someday without basically exploding.

There should’ve been a particle war

Physicists use two main frameworks in explaining particle behavior: the Standard Model of particle physics and relativistic quantum field theory. Each is super solid in its own right, and combining them leads to a perplexing outcome.

Matter and its arch nemesis are two sides of the same coin.

«The architecture of space and time basically implies that matter and antimatter are, in principle, exactly symmetric,» Ulmer said, «which means they have the same masses, they have opposite charges, opposite magnetic moments and so on and so forth.»

If that’s true, the Big Bang should’ve had a 50/50 chance of forming either one. And had a 50/50 distribution happened, antimatter and matter should’ve completely destroyed one another. (Remember the rift?) With such a particle war, the universe wouldn’t have any matter. Space wouldn’t hold a sun or an Earth, and would surely lack humanity. Only a leftover sort of energy would’ve lingered after the battle.

But the sun, Earth and humans exist.

For some reason, the universe exhibits several orders of magnitude more matter than antimatter, a cosmic riddle known as baryon asymmetry, the namesake of Ulmer’s laboratory. Did Big Bang-generated antimatter vanish? Was there never any to begin with?

«We do not understand the origin of matter and antimatter asymmetry,» Ulmer simply puts it.

The part where it comes together

Because the Standard Model’s prediction of a 50/50 matter-type distribution relies on the particles being exactly symmetrical, the mystery may finally be solved if we find a way to breach the presumed parallel.

«If, let’s say, the proton would be a bit heavier than the antiproton, that would immediately explain why there is more matter than antimatter,» Ulmer said. That’d pretty much elucidate why the universe exists.

Let’s return to Ulmer’s study results: Both matter and antimatter respond to gravity the same way, ruling out some options on the ledger of possible symmetry violations.

Ta-da, told you it’d come together.

A proton symphony

Ulmer’s experiment began with a fascinating device called a Penning trap, a small metal contraption that detects a particle’s cyclotron frequency, or frequency at which something moves in a magnetic field.

The researchers placed a lab-produced antiproton inside and measured its cyclotron frequency, then popped in a negatively charged hydrogen ion and measured the same parameter. (Ulmer used a negatively charged hydrogen ion, or atom with one proton and two electrons, as a normal matter representative because it matched the antiproton’s negative charge).

It’s easiest to think of the experiment in terms of music.

The Penning trap’s pickup system, Ulmer says, is akin to what’s in an electric guitar. «It’s, in that sense, a very musical experiment,» he explained, being a guitar player himself.

«The frequency range is a bit different, but we are listening to the sound of what does not exist in the universe,» he added. «With our current ability to listen, [matter and antimatter] sound identical.»

The particles play the same melody, if you will, which also means they have the same music notes. Aka, these particles’ cyclotron frequencies were the same, as were many of their resulting properties, such as charge-to-mass ratio. All of these similarities are now eliminated from the list of possible matter-antimatter symmetry violations.

Space as a laboratory

But the researchers’ ultimate goal was to use their cyclotron frequency data and see whether the antimatter song changes alongside adjustments in a gravitational field. Specifically, they tested whether Einstein’s weak equivalence principle – true for normal matter – works on antimatter.

Einstein’s principle states that any object in a gravitational field behaves independently of its intrinsic properties. For instance, a piano and a feather would fall to Earth with the same acceleration in the absence of external forces such as wind.

Intuitively, we might assume antimatter’s opposite charges would force it to «fall up,» or at least have some variation in behavior.

For this facet of the experiment, Ulmer took advantage of some cosmic lab equipment: the Earth and sun. «As the Earth is orbiting around the sun in an elliptical orbit,» Ulmer said, «the gravitational potential in our laboratory changes as a function of time.»

So, he and his research team measured the cyclotron frequencies, aka the melodies, of both the antiproton and negative hydrogen ions at different points in time. After 24,000 comparisons, they concluded both particle types reacted the same – with very, very high certainty.

Voila, Einstein’s principle works on antimatter. It does not, in fact, fall upward.

«We’ll continue making the microscope better and better to be sure,» Ulmer said, and «if we find something unexpected in these experiments, this would change our fundamental understanding of the laws of nature.»

Philosophical consequences of antimatter

For argument’s sake, let’s suppose someone finally finds a discrepancy between antimatter and matter. What might that mean for us?

Violating matter-antimatter symmetry would mean violating a larger phenomena called CPT invariance. C stands for charge, P for parity and T for time. In a nutshell, the rule states if any of these things were reversed, the universe would fundamentally remain the same. If time went backward instead of forward, if everything was left handed instead of right handed and, you guessed it, if all matter had the opposite charge, the world wouldn’t change.

If we were to find antimatter isn’t the same as normal matter, C would be violated. And if CPT invariance is violated, then causality, scientists say, may no longer hold. «I think this would maybe lead to a more philosophical change in our thinking,» Ulmer said. «Comparable to what happened in the 1920s when quantum mechanics was developed.»

Adding, «up to that point, people were thinking that everything is deterministic. In quantum theory, things cannot be deterministic by definition anymore – so this changes how people are understanding themselves.»

Even more baffling is the realization that because the universe appears to exist, we sort of already know antimatter is up to something. In a sense, we already know we’ll have to adjust our perspective of reality.

We’re just waiting for the right moment.

Technologies

Razer’s Wolverine V3 Pro 8K Controller Won’t Replace My Mouse and Keyboard, but Here’s Where It Shines

I applaud the absurdly high polling rate, six extra remappable buttons and TMR sticks, but let me tell you why I’m sticking with my keyboard and mouse for most games I play.

The Razer Wolverine V3 Pro 8K PC controller was not built for me, but admittedly, this has more to do with me as a gamer than the controller itself. I grew up playing the PlayStation 3 and PS4 consoles, cutting my teeth on slim, compact DualSense controllers. Over the past five years, I’ve gamed exclusively on my PC and have grown accustomed to the increased precision of a mouse and keyboard.

The Razer Wolverine V3 Pro 8K PC controller is the antithesis of a DualSense controller. It’s a chunky piece of hardware that might feel natural if you were raised on an Xbox and its bulky controllers, but it took me multiple gaming sessions to get acclimated to the sheer size of the Wolverine V3 and how it fit into my hands, especially since I don’t use a claw grip.

Size aside, this is a PC controller with every bell and whistle you can think of — and its price of $200 reflects that. The 8,000Hz polling rate ensures buttery smooth inputs with no lag, and tunnel magnetoresistance joysticks make every in-game movement feel fluid and calculated. Six extra remappable buttons help you up your game — they’re super handy for hero shooters like Marvel Rivals and hectic games like Battlefield 6. This is a premium product for gamers who are hoarding some serious hardware.

Its price is in line with other premium controllers. One of CNET’s best Xbox controllers is the Wolverine V3 Pro for Xbox, which also costs $200. Similar controllers like the Scuf Instinct Pro and Vitrix Pro BFG are in the same ballpark, pricewise, but the Wolverine V3 Pro 8K PC has a winning combination of competitive variables that make it feel exceptionally easy to use.

This controller is chock full of top-of-the-line technology and feels satisfying to use, but it needs to clear a high bar to feel truly worthwhile as a dedicated PC controller.

Chunky controller, satisfying feedback

When CNET’s Josh Goldman reviewed the Wolverine V3 Pro Xbox wireless controller, he called it «just about perfect.» If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it: Razer replicated many of its successes with the Wolverine V3 Pro PC controller.

The Wolverine V3 Pro 8K PC is the same size as the Wolverine V3 Pro Xbox controller, which is to say it’s a bit chunkier than a standard Xbox wireless controller, but it’s surprisingly much lighter than its Xbox cousin. It weighs just 220 grams, which is appreciably lighter than the Xbox version that weighs 304 grams. And while the Wolverine V3 Pro 8K PC is nowhere near as slim as a DualSense controller, it’s still much lighter than its Sony competitor — a stock DualSense controller weighs 280 grams.

Every button on this controller has a crisp, clean clickiness that scratches the same mental itch that a good mechanical keyboard might. Whether you’re gripping the trigger, pressing a button or squeezing one of the four remappable back paddles, you’ll hear incredibly satisfying auditory feedback that leaves no doubt that the controller is receiving your inputs. At one point, while I sat through a particularly long matchmaking queue, I found myself squeezing the triggers to entertain myself — the snappy pops were enough to keep me off TikTok.

The biggest difference between the V3 Pro Xbox and V3 Pro PC controllers is the variable polling rate — that dictates how often your controller is communicating with the computer. It’s like a refresh rate for your crosshair positioning.

The Wolverine V3 Pro Xbox just can’t compete here: That controller has a wired 1,000Hz polling rate for PC gameplay. The V3 Pro PC controller can be toggled for multiple polling rates, with an 8,000Hz maximum setting. This means the PC controller can report your input data eight times faster than the Xbox controller.

Every movement, turn and button press feels incredibly fluid. It’s safe to say that there’s no input lag with the Wolverine V3 PC controller, but I don’t think it matters too much for moment-to-moment first-person shooter gameplay. If you’re driving a car (or a tank) and you need to stop on a hairpin, you might appreciate Razer’s HyperPolling technology. If you’re not playing a tactical shooter like Counter-Strike or Rainbow Six: Siege, that 8,000Hz polling rate is overkill — if you’re a casual gamer crushing Call of Duty public lobbies with your pals, you’re probably not going to notice it in any of your firefights.

Better than a mouse and keyboard? That’s a little more complicated

I tested out the Wolverine V3 Pro 8K PC controller on Marvel Rivals, ARC Raiders and Battlefield 6 (my current first-person shooter obsession). It’s an extremely solid choice for at least two of these games, and I likely won’t be using my DualSense controller anytime soon.

I had a great time firing magic bolts in Marvel Rivals and rolling tanks through the streets of Cairo in Battlefield 6, but this is a controller that was supposedly designed for high-level shooter gameplay. I’m saddened to report that, when it comes to dominating a first-person shooter match or competing to survive in an extraction shooter, I’d much rather stick to a mouse and keyboard.

In close-range battles, I didn’t feel like the Wolverine controller particularly helped me gain an advantage over my opponents. Mouse-and-keyboard players were often able to lock onto me quicker, even with a high look sensitivity and built-in aim assist. And I felt outmaneuvered and outgunned by mouse-and-keyboard players in the fastest-paced fights. But the controller’s precision TMR thumbsticks made it easy to quickly lock my crosshairs onto enemies and mow them down from afar with light machine guns or sniper rifles in long-range battles.

I also find it useful for games like Battlefield that have a lot of buttons to micromanage during moment-to-moment gameplay. If you want to swap your fire mode from automatic to single-fire, mount your weapon’s bipod against a flat surface or pull out an invaluable class gadget, you’ll be reaching across your keyboard to do so. The six remappable buttons on the Wolverine V3 Pro 8K PC are great for these situations; I loved that I could tap fire my hulking light machine gun by gripping one of the controller’s back paddles.

The controller really shone for vehicle combat, though. I found myself gravitating toward my mouse and keyboard for infantry gunplay, but anytime I’d jump into a tank, I’d reach across my desk and grab the Wolverine again. Having pressure-sensitive triggers helps with any in-game driving: A slight squeeze lets me cautiously move forward, scanning for enemy mines, while fully pulling the trigger down helps me speed out of dangerous situations. Rebinding automatic repair jobs and weapon switches to the back paddles also helped me focus more on in-game combat, which helped me keep my armored vehicles in the fight for longer. With my DualSense controller, I’d have to awkwardly fumble with the D-Pad to activate my vehicle abilities. The Wolverine controller is the definitive way for a Battlefield tank enthusiast to play.

Outside of standard first-person shooter gameplay, I also found the Wolverine V3 PC controller to be handy for hero shooters — with some caveats. When I play Marvel Rivals, I mainly play tanks that require an extensive amount of ability usage but very little aim. Characters like Doctor Strange thrive when you can quickly string inputs together, and rebinding the controls to the Wolverine’s back paddles is great for that.

On the other hand, speedy divers that need to jump in and out of the enemy team’s backline and aim-intensive snipers feel tougher to play with the Wolverine controls, and I’d swap back to my mouse and keyboard whenever I wanted to switch off tank characters and fulfill another role for my team.

One game I don’t recommend the Wolverine V3 Pro PC for is ARC Raiders. While the remappable buttons make it easy to reach for healing items and grenades, losing out on the precision aim of a mouse and keyboard just isn’t worth it in a game where one death can set your progress back by several real-life hours. The controller lets me hold my own against killer ARC robots, but once real players join the mix, I’d rather use my tried-and-true PC hardware setup.

That’s not to say that the Wolverine controller is terrible for a tactical third-person shooter: The back paddles are a great way to quickly access any healing items, grenades and other consumables you’re carrying, which could be the difference between life and death. But when I have teammates depending on me to help them escape with their hard-earned loot, I just don’t trust the Wolverine controller to help me aim better than I can with my trusty mouse and keyboard.

For playing first-person shooters like Call of Duty or Apex Legends at breakneck speeds, the Wolverine V3 Pro 8K PC likely won’t replace your mouse and keyboard. But if your ideal competitive game centers on slower gunplay and long-range firefights, this is the most precise controller I’ve ever laid hands on (and you’ll receive a healthy heaping of help from aim assist to boot).

For the games I like to play, the Wolverine V3 Pro PC controller hasn’t become my primary gaming peripheral. Instead, it’s become a great situational swapout that complements my mouse and keyboard. As much as I like keeping it on deck for a long gaming session, $200 is a high price for a part-time controller.

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Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Wednesday, Dec. 17

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