
Antimatter atoms produced and trapped at CERN - jcsalterego
http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2010/PR22.10E.html
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jat850
Next, suspend it in a mercury-like globule between two battery-powered
magnetic plates, and place it beneath the Vatican...

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eru
Why?

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crocowhile
Cheap literature says so ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels_%26_Demons> )

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eru
I had hoped that less people on HN are familiar with Dan Brown's books.

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Devilboy
Off topic but I had a very interesting experience reading Dan Brown. I read
'The da Vinci Code' without knowing anything about it or Brown, and I really
enjoyed reading it. Then I saw the movie and I immediately recognized the
massive holes in the plot, holes that I never saw while reading it. It
surprised me.

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InclinedPlane
I saw the holes in the plot (and characterization, and writing, etc.) while
reading it and recognized the book as the worst sort of hollywood-esque
masturbatory dreck. Nevertheless, despite all its defects the book was written
well-enough to get me to keep reading it avidly, and for that I'll give Dan
Brown a modicum of credit. Realistically, a lot of much more well thought of
writers are no better than Brown.

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eru
It may be a guilty pleasure like junk food. McDonald's may not be worse for
you than lots of other food, but it sure does feel bad.

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alex_c
The 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?

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JoeAltmaier
They are neutral hydrogen atoms - why does a magnetic field affect them
anyway?

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alex_c
The 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>

\----

"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).

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fanf2
Atomic clocks have the same problem. They use caesium atoms, which are hard to
trap, and they want them moving very slowly so that thermal, doppler, and
relativistic effects don't screw up the frequency signal you get from them.
Hence caesium fountains, which fire the atoms upwards so that they come to the
top of their gravitational parabola at about the time they drop a hyperfine
energy level and emit the magic microwave photon.

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lpgauth
"Geneva, 17 November 2011"

A message from the future...

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juleswellesley
In accordance with Feynman's idea that the positron is an electron moving
backwards in time...
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrocausality#Antimatter>)

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Qz
_Wheeler 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!

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hypersoar
If 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.

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Qz
Maybe we haven't seen the positrons yet because they're still traveling back
in time from the future!

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newt
Showing that this makes no sense is left as an exercise to the reader.

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m_eiman
So far they have 38 atoms. I wonder what the price per kilo or pound of
antimatter is... :)

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danilocampos
Yet another substance cheaper than printer ink, whatever its price.

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Natsu
I actually once bought a new printer (and ink for it) because the combo was
_cheaper_ that replacement ink for the printer a family member had bought...

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ars
I 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.

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sp332
Antimatter has opposite charge, not opposite mass. It has the exact same
magnitude and sign of gravitational interaction as normal matter. It's never
been directly observed, but I'm not aware of any models that predict
otherwise.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_interaction_of_an...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_interaction_of_antimatter#The_antimatter_gravity_debate)

Maybe you're thinking of exotic matter?
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exotic_matter>

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arethuza
Isn't that why we have experiments, to check the predictions of models?

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rdzah
Gosh, 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.

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juiceandjuice
If you really want I can send you the pdf.

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flippyhead
I think they got it backwards. Our world is made of antimatter, it's the
matter that's disappeared

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senki
It doesn't matter anyways.

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mirkules
"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)

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metageek
It's probably so the beam can be fired at a beam of hydrogen, as in a particle
accelerator.

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charlesdm
Geneva, 17 November 2011 -- Seems like the date is wrong

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viraptor
It's right... they just didn't mention _that other experiment_ they did.

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eru
So Primer was a documentary?

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Deestan
Just _mentioning_ Primer is enough to send my brain into tilt.

I have to watch in again tonight.

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RK
Also 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>

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akharris
I, 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.

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aik
Yet...

Their developments are so fascinating to read about I can't wait to hear more.

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stuhacking
For now, they seem happy enough to annihilate the world one atom at a time.

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sswam
"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.

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donaq
The anthropic principle is not an explanation.

