“...
Scientific American’s Amateur Scientist column described in detail exactly how to build a particle accelerator back in the 1960s; I would imagine his particle accelerator was strongly influenced by that column. It was based on a Vandergraff generator, and isn’t nearly powerful enough to produce antimatter.
.....”
I saw those things at high school science fairs 46 years ago, All based on that article. Some of them actually worked. Nobody died, no tunnels into a evil dimensions releasing Cthulli (did I spell that right?) & no death ray guns made & no one (at least to my knowledge!) became a super villain!