When the universe was created, the Big Bang converted energy into matter and antimatter — two materials that destroy each other when they come into contact.
"In some sense, we're asking why anything exists at all, if it wasn't annihilated by equal quantities of matter and antimatter," Tanaka said in an interview.
"There's some kind of imbalance that occurred when the matter became dominant, and that is something that we can't explain."
"By studying these elementary particles, we're sort of looking at the universe near the time of the Big Bang," he said.
"It gives us a glimpse into what might have happened, what particles where doing, and explaining how the universe started from the Big Bang to where we are now, with galaxies, and molecules and...people.
