In the first moments of the universe, matter overpowered
antimatter, its mirror opposite. We may soon find out why. All
cultures have wondered about their origins. Modern physics
posits that space and time were born in the Big Bang, some
13.6bn years ago. Science gives no definite answer for why that
event occurred, but observations with powerful telescopes and
experiments at places like Cern, the particle physics laboratory
near Geneva, give us a good understanding of what happened next.
We know that matter is, in effect, the result of energy being
converted into substantial forms. We know how the energy in the
heat of the Big Bang created the basic seeds of matter, and how
over the eons these particles have formed galaxies of stars,
including our own Milky Way and solar system. Here on Earth,
clusters of septillions of atoms are able to think, and although
they are not yet able to comprehend what makes
them—us—conscious, they can look out in wonder at the universe,
and build machines that can revisit our or