The Charm Meson Particle May Have Changed the Nature of Reality as We Know it
Again…
This article was originally published in the author’s newsletter Curious Life and has been republished on Medium with her consent.
The thing about quantum physics is, it’s totally bizarre. Scientists and researchers are always astonished when new discoveries shatter everything they thought they knew. These tiny particles don’t obey the standard rules of nature like the rest of life does. They’re rebels. Kind of.
Well, now our very sense of reality is being challenged again. An itsy-bitsy subatomic particle called the Charm Meson is responsible for rocking our entire concept of reality during a time where reality is increasingly subjective.
Okay, so what happened?
It all started when some Oxford researchers studied a ton of data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) — a Swiss-based particle accelerator. They discovered something startling about the charm meson particle. It alternates between its particle and anti-particle states. In other words, it flips back and forth between being Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde — Itself and its alter-ego, then back.
