How is it we exist? "...we discovered that particles and antiparticles do not behave in exactly the same way. Rather, there is a slight asymmetry in how they interact..."

In defence of disorder

Humans love laws and seek predictability. But like our Universe, which thrives on entropy, we need disorder to flourish

"If there were an equal number of particles and their antiparticles in the infant Universe, as one would expect from a completely symmetrical universe, all matter would have been obliterated billions of years ago, leaving nothing but pure energy. No stars, no planets, no people – or any other solid material. So why are we here? Why haven’t all the particles disappeared along with their antiparticle partners?

The answer to this physicists’ conundrum came in 1964. In very delicate experiments at that time, we discovered that particles and antiparticles do not behave in exactly the same way. Rather, there is a slight asymmetry in how they interact with other particles, so that immediately after the creation of the Universe, particles and their antiparticles were not produced and destroyed in equal numbers. After the mass annihilations of particles with their antiparticle partners, some particles would remain, like a surplus of boys sitting on the bench at a school dance. Those remaining particles and the asymmetry that produced them is why we exist."