Why the Universe Is Not the Same in a Mirror

Chirality explains why a hand can never be rotated into its mirror image—and why the same mismatch appears in crystals, sugars, DNA and elementary particles. This concept documentary follows the story from Fresnel and Pasteur’s molecular discoveries to biological homochirality and the 1956 challenge to parity conservation. Chien-Shiung Wu’s cobalt-60 experiment proved that the weak interaction distinguishes left from right, while neutrino helicity revealed an even deeper one-sidedness in nature.

A mirror seems to reverse only appearance, but at the deepest level a mirrored universe would not obey every physical law in the same way. Understanding chirality connects everyday geometry with drug chemistry, DNA, the origin of life, radioactive decay and the matter-antimatter mystery. The story also restores the central role of Chien-Shiung Wu's experiment in overturning a principle physicists had treated as sacred. It shows how one missing symmetry can echo from particles all the way to biology.