Quantum Physics in a Mirror Universe

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When you look in mirror, and see what you think is a perfect reflection. You might be looking at universe whose laws are fundamentally different.

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Hosted by Matt O'Dowd

Written by Graeme Gossel & Matt O'Dowd

Graphics by Luke Maroldi

Assistant Editing and Sound Design by Mike Petrow

Made by Kornhaber Brown (www.kornhaberbrown.com)

When we think about symmetry, the first thing that comes to mind is mirror symmetry. Butterflies, Rorschach tests, and classically attractive faces all look the same when flipped left-to-right. In physics, a symmetry is when the laws of physics are unchanged due to some transformation of coordinates. We’ve seen examples where it is - the universe is symmetric to coordinate shifts in space, time, and even the rather abstract phase of the wave function. So it might be surprising to learn that with all the weird ways in which the universe IS symmetric, it’s NOT entirely symmetric under this most intuitive one. The laws of physics work differently in the universe of the mirror.

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