Exploring Strange Matter

There’s a lot we don’t know about the Universe's beginnings. In fact, scientists theorize there’s about 95% that we don’t understand about the matter which makes up everything around us. They call part of it “strange” matter.

However, that matter may not stay a mystery for long. Dr. Rene Bellwied, M.D. Anderson Chair Professor of Physics at NSM, has made a career exploring strange matter and trying to find what role it plays in our universe.

Funded by a $2.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, Bellwied is collaborating with Anthony Timmins, Associate Professor of Physics, and Lawrence Pinsky, Moores Professor of Physics, to delve deeper into these mysteries through a series of experiments.

“At the beginning of the universe, you had an enhancement of strange quarks, which we have just verified through measurements at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Geneva, Switzerland. These strange quarks had to go somewhere,” said Bellwied, who leads the UH Relativistic Heavy Ion Group.

"They aren't really necessary for life as we know it, but they can form a different state of matter that might have interesting implications for the distribution of mass in the universe. We believe that strange matter can be found in the interior of neutron stars and will leave a signal when these stars collide and send out gravitational waves."

To learn more about Dr. Bellwied’s research, read UH’s news story.

You can catch Dr. Bellwied live, October 23, at our Movie Night, where he’ll be hosting Angels and Demons. Join in as he explains some of the science behind the movie, part of which was filmed in his CERN laboratory. Learn more about Movie Night.