Antimatter Atoms Captured

Whamo writes: "Researchers at CERN think they have created and stored thousands of antiatoms in a particle trap. The researchers first used powerful magnetic fields to trap antiprotons then exposed this to a beam of positrons. Initial results indicate that at least some of the antiparticles have bound together to become neutral antihydrogen atoms. How cool is that?"

Comments

Re:AntiHydrogen atom?

[EricKrout.com]

"Antihydrogen is an atom made entirely of antiparticles: while ordinary hydrogen consists of a positive proton with a negative electron orbiting around it, the antihydrogen atom has a negative "antiproton" in the centre bound to a positive "positron".
...
Pioneering experiments at CERN and more recently at Fermilab in the US, had only one aim : to produce and to detect a few antihydrogen atoms. They succeeded in demonstrating that antihydrogen can indeed be produced, but the real goal is more challenging: the precise comparison of the physical properties of matter and antimatter atoms. Three quarters of our universe is hydrogen and much of what we have learned about it has been found by studying ordinary hydrogen. If the behaviour of antihydrogen differed even in the tiniest detail from that of ordinary hydrogen, physicists would have to rethink or abandon many of the established ideas on the symmetry between matter and antimatter.
...
Just over a year after the announcement of the production of the first 9 anti-atoms at CERN (PR 01.96) in January 1995, the approval of the Antiproton Decelerator opens up new exciting research possibilities for scientists from all over the world waiting to increase our knowledge of antimatter. The questions are fundamental : Why, if the same quantities of matter and antimatter were produced during the Big Bang, as is supposed, is our Universe made entirely of matter? Does gravity has the same effect on antimatter as it does on matter? The solutions to these questions could lie in the results which will be produced by the Antiproton Decelerator?"

- from http://press.web.cern.ch/Press/Releases97/PR01.97E AntiprotonDec.html

Re:Yeah?

[orcrist]

we need a metamoderate choice: stupid.

For those who don't get it, the parent post (currently at 0) has been moderated offtopic and flamebait.

For the brain-damaged: Antimatter... how does this matter? Get it?

Jeez. (using my +2 to keep the thread visible.)