Rabi States New Discovery Could Change View of Universe's Nature

A new conception of the structure of the universe may result from the discovery of the anti-proton, I. I. Rabi, Nobel-prize physicist and 1955 Morris Loeb Lecturer, said yesterday.

He described a world of anti-matter that could exist somewhere in the universe in which "lakes shimmer and fishes swim," but would be annihilated if it came in contact with the world of ordinary matter.

The discovery of the anti-proton, announced Tuesday, is an achievement "of immense importance that opens up new vistas about the structure of the universe," he said. Rabi explained that it is physically possible for two forms of matter to exist: ordinary and anti-matter.

Rabi, Higgins Professor of Physics at Columbia, described the anti-matter as seemingly like ordinary matter, but made of positive electrons and the newly discovered anti-protons, while this world is made of negative electrons and positive protons.

Contact between the two forms of matter would lead to annihilation of both with the release of enormous amounts of energy, he added. It was possible to discover the anti-proton only when large amounts of energy were produced in the University of California's new bevatron, he said.

Norman F. Ramsey, professor of Physics, and a former colleague of Rabi, agreed with the visiting lecturer about the importance of the discovery and raised the question of whether "we are to believe that there are the same number of negative and positive protons in the universe."

Previous theory hypothesized the existence of "symmetry of charge" in the universe; that is, for each charged particle and oppositely charged particle exists. The discovery of the anti-proton supports this belief. With this new particle, "the picture is complete," Rabi observed.