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A 50/50 matter/anti-matter system could still house stable local pockets of mostly matter or anti-matter. The problem is, from what I understand, that the universe seems to have sprung into existence with way more matter than anti-matter, and we don't know why.


Could it be that the observable universe is one of these stable local pockets and the antimatter to balance it out is simply not observable to us?


Mathematically possible.

If you flip 2n fair coins, you expect n+δ heads and n-δ tails, where δ is (IIRC) sqrt(n/2). Going much away from that becomes infintessimally unlikely.

Probability is a subject famously easy to get wrong, so be careful with what I'm about to suggest: I *think* you could argue that in the moment prior to the inflation epoch spreading everything out just enough that pair production stops*, any given particle in our horizon is a coin toss of matter or antimatter.

Number of observed atoms in the universe is about 6e79 (http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=how%20many%20atoms%20in...), so 6e79 = sqrt(n/2) -> n = 7.2e159 due to protons, and the same again for electrons; as we don't see significant signs of antimatter, any around must have annihilated a long time ago, so in this scenario we should expect to see ~7e159 (red-shifted) photons from the supermajority of particles which have annihilated.

It's outside my field to know how that compares to cosmologist's observations.

* won't that be at different times for protons/neutrons and electrons?

I can't get good answers on the expectations for either "why are protons and electrons counts the same" or "what is the observable consequence if they're not?"


Potentially, but it seems like an untestable hypothesis by itself.




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