9 ms·
Antimatter atoms produced and trapped at CERN
- charlesdm 16y agoGeneva, 17 November 2011 -- Seems like the date is wrong
- lpgauth 16y ago"Geneva, 17 November 2011" A message from the future...
- joshes 16y agoWe have the Higgs Boson to thank for this.
- juleswellesley 16y agoIn accordance with Feynman's idea that the positron is an electron moving backwards in time... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrocausality#Antimatter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrocausality#Antimatter)
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- Qz 16y agoWheeler invoked this concept to explain the identical properties shared by all electrons, suggesting that "they are all the same electron" with a complex, self-intersecting worldline. Quantum mechanics is so cool!
- hypersoar 16y agoIf I remember correctly, Feynman quickly suggested to Wheeler that this is probably wrong, as it would imply that there are as many positrons as electrons. At least in our little piece of the universe, this is definitely not the case.
- Zaak 16y agoIf the universe has toroidal topology, then the Big Bang is connected to the Big Crunch, and the number of positrons doesn't have to equal the number of electrons. Of course, dark energy makes that all impossible.
- Qz 16y agoMaybe we haven't seen the positrons yet because they're still traveling back in time from the future!
- newt 16y agoShowing that this makes no sense is left as an exercise to the reader.
- xtho 16y agoSomething went wrong when they built the earth. It shouldn't be spinning.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- m_eiman 16y agoSo far they have 38 atoms. I wonder what the price per kilo or pound of antimatter is... :)
- mfukar 16y agoActually, I think they have had 38 atoms, since it is possible to hold on to atoms of antihydrogen in this way for about a tenth of a second.
- Groxx 16y agoLet the bidding war... begin!Bidding is over! The ex-antimatter goes to...
- jonhohle 16y agoI won the auction, and all I got was this stupid matter! (ex-antimatter == !(!matter) == matter)
- MiguelHudnandez 16y agoAntimatter and matter annihilate each other upon contact, releasing the energy from both atoms. So the ex-antimatter would be half the released energy from the collision. I think?
- ars 16y agoYour equation is wrong. Why are you negating matter twice? If you have anti-matter it will annihilate with matter making gamma rays. Those gamma rays can then participate in pair production making an electron and an anti-electron (positron), but that only happens in a strong magnetic field. That positron will then annihilate again if it meets an electron (maybe even the same one, but it doesn't have to be). Which would then make gamma ray, which can start the process again. You can theoretically do this over and over forever, but realistically the gamma ray will probably be absorbed in something. Also, I think the annihilation may make two gamma rays, dividing the energy. Edit: Is your equation a joke on the english words, ex and anti?
- jat850 16y agoNext, suspend it in a mercury-like globule between two battery-powered magnetic plates, and place it beneath the Vatican...
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- rubypay 16y agoAlthough the cost to create antimatter is very high, our government is actually working on creating antimatter munitions. (I've worked on creating a portable antimatter trap, which was funded by the U.S. government.)
- aik 16y agoWith what purpose? How would such a thing act?
- rubypay 16y agoFor its size, it would be many times more powerful than a hydrogen bomb, by several magnitudes.
- panacea 16y agoBecause we need a bigger deterrent that complete loss of life on earth via hydrogen bomb?
- CamperBob 16y agoWell, we can't allow a positron-trap gap, now can we?
- juiceandjuice 16y agoOnly because the mass to energy conversion is 100%. But, if you factored in the size of whatever object you use to contain the antimatter, then your mass to energy conversion is probably comparable to a hydrogen bomb. Further, factor in the the energy required to contain the antimatter and it seems like it's losing proposition, probably until you start to approach the size of a small house or larger. So then the argument turns into critical mass vs. critical structure mass. Anyways, the technique they used is much more interesting than the fact that it's antimatter. Of course, CERN still has to play the PR game too just like anybody else, and I don't fault them for that.
- ars 16y agoI hope they will finally definitely answer if anti-matter also has anti-gravity. Not a single scientist thinks it does, but it's one of those things you just want confirmed.
- Dylan16807 16y agoI would have thought this had already been tested on antiprotons, but I'm not seeing any references for it. Just a note that results from testing anti-hydrogen for gravity should be had in the next few years. Maybe containing something so charged overwhelms gravity?
- ars 16y agoMost antiprotons move too fast to test. Plus the charge is strong enough to overwhelm any signal from gravity.
- lutorm 16y agoAs has been alluded to, gravity is an extremely weak force, so any gravitational effect is easily masked by electroweak forces until you accumulate a very significant mass. There's no way they can measure this on a single atom.
- someone_here 16y agoBut easy to test with 2 atoms! Smash them together at a high enough speed where e=mc^2 says they would create a black hole. If they are destroyed in a blip of Hawking radiation, they had gravity!
- akharris 16y agoI, for one, am just glad that CERN didn't create a black hole or otherwise destroy spacetime before they managed to do the kind of thing we normally have to turn to science fiction to read about.
- aik 16y agoYet... Their developments are so fascinating to read about I can't wait to hear more.
- stuhacking 16y agoFor now, they seem happy enough to annihilate the world one atom at a time.
- alex_c 16y agoThe article doesn't spell it out, and I know practically nothing about the subject, but... what happens at the end of the 0.2s? Do the antimatter atoms drift out of the magnetic fields used to contain them? Do matter atoms drift in? Or is it some property of the atoms or magnetic fields? Basically, what needs to change to increase the 0.2s?
- JoeAltmaier 16y agoThey are neutral hydrogen atoms - why does a magnetic field affect them anyway?
- snissn 16y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperfine_structure http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperfine_structure
- icegreentea 16y agoThe link under further reading (http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/30577 http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/30577) provides some insight. Neutral atoms still have a magnetic moment. These do interact with magnetic fields. I'm way over my head here, so won't attempt to explain more.
- alex_c 16y agoThe BBC article that's further down the front page at the moment brings it down closer to my level: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11773791 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11773791 ---- "Atoms are neutral - they have no net charge - but they have a little magnetic character," explained Jeff Hangst of Aarhus University in Denmark, one of the collaborators on the Alpha antihydrogen trapping project. "You can think of them as small compass needles, so they can be deflected using magnetic fields. We build a strong 'magnetic bottle' around where we produce the antihydrogen and, if they're not moving too quickly, they are trapped," he told BBC News. Such sculpted magnetic fields that make up the magnetic bottle are not particularly strong, so the trick was to make antihydrogen atoms that didn't have much energy - that is, they were slow-moving. ---- So, basically, magic. I'm just curious what the specific limitation is (but realize it may not be trivial to explain without understanding the entire containment process better).
- flippyhead 16y agoI think they got it backwards. Our world is made of antimatter, it's the matter that's disappeared
- mirkules 16y ago"The collaboration reports success in producing antihydrogen in a so-called Cusp trap, an essential precursor to making a beam." The article doesn't really say, but why are beams needed? Is it because these (anti-)particles are always moving or have such a short lifespan, or is there some other reason beams are so important? (The sci-fi nerd in me first thought of weaponizing it, but I hope that never happens)
- metageek 16y agoIt's probably so the beam can be fired at a beam of hydrogen, as in a particle accelerator.
- RK 16y agoAlso at the same facility is the experiment to investigate using beams of antiprotons to treat cancer. http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/Research/ACE-en.html http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/Research/ACE-en.html
- rdzah 16y agoGosh, it sure would be nice if the actual scientific results weren't locked behind a paywall...if I paid taxes in the EU I'd be pissed.
- juiceandjuice 16y agoIf you really want I can send you the pdf.
- sswam 16y ago"antimatter seems to have disappeared" This is not very mysterious. If there was lots of antimatter lying about nearby, we could not be alive to see it. So, any antimatter must be a long way away or otherwise separated from us.
- donaq 16y agoThe anthropic principle is not an explanation.