316
Scientists trap and tame a single particle of antimatter for months (news.northwestern.edu)
submitted 1 week ago by to c/science@lemmy.world
77 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 103 points 1 week ago (18 children)

This is actually really exciting! I fucking love anti-matter, always been fascinated by it.

If anti-matter can exist, why is our universe made of matter? This is the Baryon Asymmetry question that this research seeks to answer. The team has proven they can isolate a single positron. The next step is to measure it to as much accuracy as they have with the electron. Perhaps they will find differences!

Summer '25 CERN showed that anti-matter baryons (protons, neutrons, etc) decay differently - link. So there's a good chance they might find something!

Would love to actually see anti-matter but that's a long way off. Really hope anti-matter likes to stick together and we could actually build atoms out of it. Would be crazy to study the properties of anti-water! Maybe that's just science fiction. In any case, very excited for the coming research!

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 18 child comments
    •
  • [–] 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (8 children)

    "Would love to actually see anti-matter" - are you being literal here? because that would require a vacuum between your eyes and antimatter that emits at a visible frequency. Not entirely impossible, but detection and recording of an anti-hydrogen transition wavelength is more easily achievable. This might be no more than an LCD display indicating a non-zero number though. Exciting for sure, but not necessarily a visual spectacle.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 8 child comments
    •
  • [–] 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

    Yeah very literal. Would need millions of atoms of the stuff. Actually maybe that's too dangerous lol

    We have managed to see a single strontium atom - link. Maybe that's attainable with anti-matter.

    But yeah you're right, capturing an anti-hyrdogen emission would be an huge achievement itself!

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    Make the glass of anti water on the moon just in case heh.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago

    Just for fun I did the Maths.

    Rougly a 100ml glass of anti-water has 100g of anti-water (assuming same density as normal pure water, which is around 1).

    When anti-mater contacts mater it transforms into energy according to E = mc^2^ were E is in Joule and m is in kg.

    For 100g of anti-water to turn into energy in this way it also needs 100g of normal mater, so the number is doubled.

    Using the rounded 300,000,000 m/s for the constant c, the energy released by the annihilation of a 100ml glass of anti-water (and the matching 100g of normal mater) would be 1.8e+16 Joules, equivalent to around 4.3 Megatons of TNT.

    So basically a regular nuclear bomb.

    PS: I actually expected it would be much more energy before I did the maths.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
    • load more comments (-1 replies)
  • [–] 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    You did not just write "LCD display". Feel ashamed! >:V

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 13 points 1 week ago (7 children)

    If you love antimatter. eat banana. It contains traces of antimatter.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 7 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    Bananas always get the hype for being particularly rich in potassium-40, which is the unstable isotope, but Brazil nuts have far more, and potato and carrot are about as radioactive as banana.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •