In the Physical Review, young physicists Tsung D. Lee and Chen N. Yang raise for the first time the issue of non-conservation of parity (parity symmetry breaking) in nuclear decay reactions. (In other words, by seeing the same reaction in a mirror, we can say with certainty that it is a mirror image; that is, in macroscopic reality, it is impossible.) This is the first parity symmetry breaking in physics; Leon Lederman will demonstrate it experimentally the following year. Lee and Yang will win the Nobel Prize for this. The universe is slightly left-handed… (In other words, the laws of physics at the quantum level change when a reaction is mirrored, that is, when spatial coordinates are inverted. Therefore, unlike macroscopic reality, it is possible at the quantum level to tell whether an image is the real one or the mirrored one.) Why is this important? When the universe formed in the Big Bang, it should have generated matter and antimatter in equal amounts, if nature treated them exactly the same, leaving behind nothing but energy to annihilate each other. Yet, our matter-dominated universe exists. CP (Charge and Parity) violation is essential to explaining this imbalance, although many aspects remain unsolved.
