In a Symmetrical World, Lies an Asymmetrical Universe
Our world is surrounded by symmetry. Snowflakes and sunflowers exhibit reflectional symmetry around a point. Animals like sharks and starfish are bilaterally the same. It's even hiding in molecular structures like RNA and proteins. Given symmetry’s prevalence in nature, it seems as if life has a preference for symmetry. However, new findings about distinct asymmetry in the universe suggest otherwise.
For a long time, scientists have believed that the universe is evenly distributed, a layout that is expected given that the universe emerged from a single point when the Big Bang occurred. However, recently researchers at MIT and Columbia have suggested an alternate theory — forces that were exerted on the universe in the extreme early moments of creation caused it to develop asymmetrically.
Researchers used supercomputers to develop their theory. With the computers, the separations between millions of galaxies within our universe were mapped using shapes called tetrahedrons. These tetrahedrons connected four galaxies and it was found that on average, the shapes orient more in one direction than any other. This skew suggests that the universe is asymmetrical.
These results are surprising. On Earth, gravity pulls objects evenly in all directions. Scientists had assumed that this idea of evenly distributed forces would apply even on the larger scale of the universe. This would mean in theory, there should be an equal number of left-handed and right-handed tetrahedrons. Nonetheless, this notion has been proven false.
An image of an asymmetrical universe.
Now, scientists are looking towards what could have caused the universe to develop asymmetrically. Looking at the universe from a standard lens, such asymmetry is not possible under the laws of gravity which control for imbalances. So, scientists have been led to believe that there is new physics going on that could explain why the universe is unbalanced.
Some scientists have developed a theory that suggests asymmetry is a result of actions that took place in the first 10-32 seconds of the universe. In these early moments, there were forces and particles that acted in ways that differ from behaviors explained by classical physics. These atypical interactions could generate something like the asymmetry observed today.
Moving forward, scientists will be looking into early universe physics models to help explain the universe’s asymmetry. In the process, we may see a new branch of physics develop that could help explain many processes and phenomenons in our universe. In the meantime, we can be sure that our universe isn’t as symmetrical as we once thought it to be.
