Can Antimatter be Created?

If antimatter is the opposite of matter, then we can say that antimatter can neither be created nor destroyed, right?
- James Edward B. Ortega (age 16)

No, just the opposite. Balanced matter-antimatter (e.g an electron-positron pair) can be and routinely is created and destroyed. Those processes obey all the conservation laws. Maybe you're thinking of some saying that's sometimes taught in school about "matter can't be created or destroyed" but, in the usual sense of the words, that's just false.

Mike W.

(published on 01/05/2013)