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Scientists Blast Antimatter Atoms With a Laser For The First Time (npr.org)

For the first time, researchers from Indiana University were able to blast antimatter atoms with a laser to measure the light emitted from the anti-atoms. The researchers hope to answer one of the big mysteries of our universe: Why, in the early universe, did antimatter lose out to regular old matter? NPR reports: "The first time I heard about antimatter was on Star Trek, when I was a kid," says Jeffrey Hangst, a physicist at Aarhus University in Denmark. "I was intrigued by what it was and then kind of shocked to learn that it was a real thing in physics." He founded a research group called ALPHA at CERN, Europe's premier particle physics laboratory near Geneva, that is devoted to studying antimatter. That's a tricky thing to do because antimatter isn't like the regular matter you see around you every day. At the subatomic level, antimatter is pretty much the complete opposite -- instead of having a negative charge, for example, its electrons have a positive charge. And whenever antimatter comes into contact with regular matter, they both disappear in a flash of light. In the journal Nature, his team reports that they've now used the special laser to probe this antimatter. So far, what they see is that their anti-hydrogen atoms respond to the laser in the same way that regular hydrogen does. That's what the various theories out there would predict -- still, Hangst says, it's important to check. "We're kind of really overjoyed to finally be able to say we have done this," he says. "For us, it's a really big deal." From the journal Nature: "Researchers at CERN, the European particle physics laboratory outside Geneva, trained an ultraviolet laser on antihydrogen, the antimatter counterpart of hydrogen. They measured the frequency of light needed to jolt a positron -- an antielectron -- from its lowest energy level to the next level up, and found no discrepancy with the corresponding energy transition in ordinary hydrogen."

8 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. Well duh. by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 4, Funny

    Researchers ... trained an ultraviolet laser on antihydrogen, ... and found no discrepancy with the corresponding energy transition in ordinary hydrogen.

    Everyone knows you need to use an anti-laser to get the appropriate results.

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    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    1. Re: Well duh. by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 4, Funny

      I can't wait until they publish the anti-paper. It may bomb, though.

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      Ezekiel 23:20
    2. Re: Well duh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      If so, it will be the antithesis of conventional matters.

    3. Re:Well duh. by slickwillie · · Score: 5, Funny

      You mean they shoulda used photoffs instead of photons?

  2. Not the first attempt. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 5, Funny

    This actually isn't the first time they've run this experiment. The first time was back in 2005 but things didn't go as planned. What happened was really a cautionary tale because one scientist had their cat ("Schrodinger") at the lab and was enjoying the warm anti-matter containment unit. When the scientists began the experiment, the cat spotted the laser and lunged at it, coming into direct contact with the anti-matter. It was a mess and Schrodinger the cat was very very dead while the lab and experiment destroyed. After that, people started saying that you have to harness anti-matter with a cat or as one person put it, "grab them by the pussy." ;)

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    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    1. Re:Not the first attempt. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Schrodinger the cat was very very dead

      Are you sure it was dead?

  3. Oh great, a new SJW movement... by BronsCon · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hydrogen Lives Anti-Matter

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    APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
  4. I have to ask... by hyades1 · · Score: 4, Funny

    The lasers...is it possible, just barely possible, that they were mounted on the heads of tiny sharks?

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    I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.