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Cern Mass Produces Anti-Hydrogen
Izeickl writes "The BBC is reporting Here about scientists in the Cern particle accelerator in Geneva, Switzerland have mass produced over 50,000 atoms allowing them to test basic Physics using them, however "Harvard physicist Gerald Gabrielse said: "Our long experience with these very difficult experiments warns that antihydrogen may not have really been produced.""
Well we could built an anti-computer out of anti-silicon, run anti-windows98 on it, then laugh when the whole thing explodes and blame it on microsoft :)
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
From the horses mouth :-) Athena, the guys who did it
Nature.com article(PDF)
home page of the experiment
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anti-microsoft
Surely then it wouldn't explode, it would just keep working for a very long time?
We've discovered Earth-like extrasolar planets... just kidding!
We've found bacterial life from Mars... just kidding!
Jeez, these scientist guys need a hobby.
- SMJ - (It's not just a name: it's a bad aftertaste.)
I also have just mass produced over 50,000 antihydrogen atoms!
however "Harvard physicist Gerald Gabrielse said: "Our long experience with these very difficult experiments warns that antihydrogen may not have really been produced."
Also, _my_ long experience with antihydrogen tells me I may have not _really_ produced antihydrogen!
Look, supernintendo chalmers! I'm learneding!
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
Enough to actually get to see the antimatter production ring at Fermilab. Once or twice a year, they go into a maintenance shutdown and give small informal tours.
What used to be the main ring years ago is now the antimatter ring. The magnets were all upgraded to superconductors, and they added buncher/debunchers to the ring to squeeze protons together and apart which, every so often produces a stray anti-proton.
Cern is way ahead of Fermi in that they are producing full anti-atoms, whereas Fermi is only making anti-particles.
Definitely forget about efficiency in production, the guy giving the tour said their electric bill is about a million dollars a month, and they make very few anti-protons from all that power! I bet they're ComEd's best customer. They can't run during the summer air-conditioning months, as they would suck too much energy from the grid in Illinois.
The guide also said as long as the magnets stay supercooled, the anti-protons will stay suspended in the ring for up to a month (unless they hit stray matter and blow up sooner).
After the tour, we got to play stump the genius - one of the research physicists there was nice enough to give a Q & A session. A most informative and cool tour, getting to see something that most "civilians" never get to lay eyes on.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
Now, the Cern particle accelerator in Geneva, Switzerland, has produced more than 50,000.
Sooo, exactly how many hydrogen atoms are in a handful anyway? My first guess would be in the ballpark of "A hell of a lot more than 50k".
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It's clear at this point that the standard "SI" or metric system is no longer sufficient to describe the events in today's world. As such, the "PS", or "Pop Science" unit system is defined below for those interested by this handy guide
Information
Old Unit: bit
New Unit: Library of Congress
Time Interval
Old Unit: second
New Unit: eye-blink
Number of Particles
Old Unit: mole
New Unit: handful
Width (small distances)
Old Unit: millimeter
New Unit: human hair
Length (large distances)
Old Unit: meter, kilometer
New Unit: football field
Volume
Old Unit: cubic centimeter, liter
New Unit: football stadium
Energy
Old Unit: joule
New Unit: 100-watt-lightbulb-second
Mass
Old Unit: gram, kilogram
New Unit: CowboyNeal
More units will be assigned as they are needed
When's it going to happen dammit? I'm dying here. My brother is like a bog in that he produces cubic FEET of methane on a daily basis. And I have been waiting for the day when somebody produces antimethane. Once someone has made antimethane I will put some of it in my brother's boxers and wait for the fireworks and subsequent explosion. Then I will get his room that bastard.
Harvard physicist Gerald Gabrielse said: "Our long experience with these very difficult experiments warns that antihydrogen may not have really been produced."
Meanwhile scientists at CERN say "The yanks are just jealous because we beat them to it."
"Information wants to be paid"
"We must stop these anti-hydrogen terrorists, I am informed that hydrogen is in things we use everyday like coke, and is even vital to Americans' survival. These people who are anti-hydrogen are anti-american and are seeking to destroy the very basis of our society, you can not be a friend of america if you are not a friend of hydrogen"
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
The BBC is reporting Here about scientists in the Cern particle accelerator in Geneva, Switzerland have mass produced over 50,000 atoms allowing them to test basic...
;-)
Wouldn't it be a bit more correct to say that that've been anti-mass-produced?
There's a simple and to-the-point description of Antihydrogen at the Wikipedia.
Bizarrely, the person responsible for the original submission is typing this sentence right now. Thankfully, brighter people have improved upon it somewhat since then... :)
Insert witty sig about inserting witty sig here, here.
You can tell they are anti-hydrogen because they all have little goatees and a really bad attitude.
This idea was invented by Shampoo.
Personally, I'm holding out for anti-helium. That'll make me sound like Barry White, right?
Got Rhinos?
1) First, this is a drop in the bucket. CERN is one of only a few entities using this kind of power. Take a look at the 55,000 home figure. Say these are your Asian homes, and you end up with 550,000 homes that could be powered by the energy used at CERN. Given the masses of humanity, that adds up to NOTHING. Certainly not enough to justify the potentially disastrous consequences to humanity that could result if we stop this kind of research. The average utility bill at Fermilab (US counterpart to CERN) is 1.5 million dollars. Over the course of a year, thats $18 million. In comparison, the USAID annual budget is $6 billion. The Federal Highway program's budget on the other hand, is $26 billion. Yes, people would rather fix potholes than develop countries. Such is the world we live in. But its not like research money is coming out of the mouths of the poor. The real problem isn't that the world spends too much on research (if only). The real problem is that people have no clue about anything outside the bounds of their tiny meaningless existance. For example, most people, when survayed, said that they thought the US spends too much on foreign aid. When asked how much they thought was appropriate, they said 5% of the budget. The real figure is one-tenth of that number. There are dozens of things you can do to make up the cost of this research, including improving distribution methods, bringing down cultural barries that make access to healthcare inefficient, reforming patent conventions that jack up the cost of medications, etc. In the end, science is not the thing to sacrifice for humanity. BTW, I grew up learning stuff about international development from my dad (that's his line of work), and I was born in Thailand and spent part of my childhood in Bangladesh. I *do* know what I'm talking about.
2) We're not talking about the "many marvelous inventions in the last, say, 20 years." We're talking about how physics has redefined the universe was we know it over the last 200 years. A large percentage of the modern economy owes its existance to quantum physics. The work at CERN is simply an extension of the very ancient search for knowledge about the structure of matter. Anytime you get a cat-scan or an X-ray, take medicine, use a computer, drive a car, watch TV, etc, you're directly benifeting from that research. Even those in inpovrished countries should thank this research for allowing scientists to use advanced imaging tehnologies to create things like TB vaccines that sells for dollars per dose. Going into the future, the only sure way to relieve poverty is to find more resources. It is not possible for the human population to keep growing, expanding, evolving, reaching towards a higher state of being, without more raw matter. So yes, that warp drive space ship WILL help the guy living in poverty, if you stop being so short-sighted. Giving a man a fish is not the only way to help him.
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