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Antimatter atom trapped for first time, say scientists
BBC News ^ | 11/17/10 | Jason Palmer

Posted on 11/17/2010 2:08:43 PM PST by NormsRevenge

Antimatter atoms have been trapped for the first time, scientists say.

Researchers at Cern, home of the Large Hadron Collider, have held 38 antihydrogen atoms in place, each for a fraction of a second.

Antihydrogen has been produced before but it was instantly destroyed when it encountered normal matter.

The team, reporting in Nature, says the ability to study such antimatter atoms will allow previously impossible tests of fundamental tenets of physics.

The current "standard model" of physics holds that each particle - protons, electrons, neutrons and a zoo of more exotic particles - has its mirror image antiparticle.

The antiparticle of the electron, for example, is the positron, and is used in an imaging technique of growing popularity known as positron emission tomography.

However, one of the great mysteries in physics is why our world is made up overwhelmingly of matter, rather than antimatter; the laws of physics make no distinction between the two and equal amounts should have been created at the Universe's birth.

Slowing anti-atoms

Producing antimatter particles like positrons and antiprotons has become commonplace in the laboratory, but assembling the particles into antimatter atoms is far more tricky.

That was first accomplished by two groups in 2002. But handling the "antihydrogen" - bound atoms made up of an antiproton and a positron - is trickier still because it must not come into contact with anything else.

While trapping of charged normal atoms can be done with electric or magnetic fields, trapping antihydrogen atoms in this "hands-off" way requires a very particular type of field.

"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.

(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Science
KEYWORDS: antihydrogen; antimatter; cern; firsttime; hadron; largehadroncollider; scientists; stringtheory; trapped
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To: GreatJoeMcCarthy

Given that a kilogram of anti-matter could be used to make a 50 megaton bomb (or lots of little bombs), I have some uses.

Storage is one step

Economical production is another.

Apparently, they have confirmed that there are millions of tons of this stuff trapped in the magnetic belt around Earth.


21 posted on 11/17/2010 3:03:08 PM PST by TheThirdRuffian (Nothing to see here. Move along.)
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To: Domandred

I think another corollary is that things are only IMPOSSIBLE until someone figures out how to do it.


22 posted on 11/17/2010 3:04:56 PM PST by Dead Corpse (III, Alarm and Muster)
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To: MindBender26
There is some chance that the CERN experiments could lead to the end of the world, and perhaps the end of the universe. It is a infinitesimal chance, but it is a chance.

Great. I'll take antimatter and the points for a hundred.

23 posted on 11/17/2010 3:07:59 PM PST by hinckley buzzard
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To: TheThirdRuffian

Reminds me of the Californium Bomb project. One ton TNT equivalent out of a grenade launcher.

Seriously, it may take 100 years, but antimatter will make great starship fuel. It can also be used to catalyze hydrogen fusion for spaceships IIRC.


24 posted on 11/17/2010 3:08:23 PM PST by darth
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To: GreatJoeMcCarthy
Its a good thing those Europeans have wasted billions of dollars so they could trap 38 sub-atomic particles for a fraction of a second

"If I could catch time in a bottle, there's nothing that I'd rather do..."

25 posted on 11/17/2010 3:12:42 PM PST by hinckley buzzard
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To: GreatJoeMcCarthy
Its a good thing those Europeans have wasted billions of dollars so they could trap 38 sub-atomic particles for a fraction of a second. We wouldn’t want them to waste that money trying to improve the economies of Portugal, Spain, or Ireland, or anything like that.

Projects like this used to happen in America back when this country aspired towards greatness. I'd rather see scientific endeavors such as this Large Hadron Collider funded with my tax dollars as opposed to entitlement programs for the stupid and lazy and free drugs for old people.

26 posted on 11/17/2010 3:21:04 PM PST by Drew68
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To: NormsRevenge
So these guys can be trapped in a magnetic field, just like normal matter.

Which is pretty cool, but it raises an interesting question about magnetic fields .... what are they, exactly, that they can interact with both matter and anti-matter without destroying it?

27 posted on 11/17/2010 3:23:53 PM PST by r9etb
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To: Talisker

Sorry, was not a math major. :)


28 posted on 11/17/2010 3:32:30 PM PST by MindBender26 (Fighting the "con" in Conservatism on FR since 1998.)
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To: Domandred
My first wife, diarrhea and Obama are all proof of that statement!
29 posted on 11/17/2010 3:36:32 PM PST by MindBender26 (Fighting the "con" in Conservatism on FR since 1998.)
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To: MindBender26

One in a million? Yikes.

What are the chances that it will be one in a million? One in a billion?


30 posted on 11/17/2010 3:38:50 PM PST by dhs12345
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To: NormsRevenge

GreenPeace, The ACLU and CAIR immediately called for a release of the atom and halt to any further trapping of poor innocent antimatter atoms.

a large grant should be considered for the person who discovers the anti-matter greenpeace, ACLU, and Cair...imagine if it was introduced into the world....POOF!


31 posted on 11/17/2010 3:41:33 PM PST by terycarl (interested and informed)
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To: Dead Corpse

Or maybe we create the possibility by simply “observing” it.


32 posted on 11/17/2010 3:41:56 PM PST by dhs12345
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To: GreatJoeMcCarthy
Without research of space and non-Newtonian physics, humanity(possibly the only intelligent life in the universe) will meet certain doom on this ever-changing planet.

Unfortunately, I fear that saving us from our own stupidity, greed and laziness will take more effort than crossing the galaxy.

33 posted on 11/17/2010 3:43:27 PM PST by varyouga (Obama doesn't care about white people!)
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To: r9etb
Which is pretty cool, but it raises an interesting question about magnetic fields .... what are they, exactly, that they can interact with both matter and anti-matter without destroying it?

So, are you postulating the existence of an anti-magnetic field :)?

34 posted on 11/17/2010 3:44:46 PM PST by MCH
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To: r9etb
Anything with a charge, can be trapped in a magnetic field.

If I remember correctly, a magnetic field is produced by a (another) charge in motion.

35 posted on 11/17/2010 3:46:08 PM PST by dhs12345
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To: Talisker

"Doesn't Matter".

36 posted on 11/17/2010 4:02:03 PM PST by Defiant (I'm a Fabian Constitutionalist. Roll back FDR and progressivism!)
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To: Talisker; MindBender26

You are both wrong.

It’s 50/50. It will either happen, or it won’t.


37 posted on 11/17/2010 4:04:24 PM PST by UCANSEE2 (Lame and ill-informed post)
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To: MindBender26
i think they are called Brazillions...
38 posted on 11/17/2010 4:05:00 PM PST by Chode (American Hedonist - *DTOM* -ww- NO Pity for the LAZY)
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To: MindBender26
Sorry, was not a math major. :)

Me either, that's why I'm so confident with numbers. : )


39 posted on 11/17/2010 4:07:20 PM PST by Talisker (When you find a turtle on top of a fence post, you can be damn sure it didn't get there on its own.)
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To: NormsRevenge

40 posted on 11/17/2010 4:12:50 PM PST by Bratch
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