Posted 11.17.2010 at 2:03 pm
26 Comments
An Octupole Magnet Used to Trap Antihydrogen
Katie Bertsche
While CERN researchers at the Large Hadron Collider continue to smash protons, create mini Big Bangs, and otherwise probe the fundamental fabrics that make up the universe, other less-publicized CERN experiments are yielding big results as well. A team of researchers working at CERN’s Geneva labs has succeeded in trapping antihydrogen atoms – the antimatter equivalent to hydrogen – for the first time.
Antihydrogen has been created in the lab before – at CERN actually, back in 2002 – but those atoms existed for just a few fleeting microseconds before doing what antimatter does best: colliding with normal matter (in this case hydrogen atoms) and, in a flash of gamma rays, ceasing to exist. The ability to trap them could lead to range of antimatter experiments that could explain just exactly why antimatter – created in equal parts as normal matter during the birth of the universe (or so the theory goes) – is for the most part absent today.
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Science, Clay Dillow, antihydrogen, antimatter, cosmology, particle physics, physics, positronsNaturally, the means of trapping antihydrogen atoms is complex, but the researchers essentially start with cooled and compressed antiprotons that they slowly nudge into a cloud of positrons where they fuse to form antihydrogen. This mating ritual takes place inside of a magnetic bottle that uses a specially designed magnetic field created by an octupole superconducting magnet to keep them from immediately annihilating themselves.
Not immediately-immediately anyhow; the antihydrogen atoms still only exist for just more than a tenth of a second, but don’t let their short lifespan fool you. If CERN researchers can stabilize their tiny antihydrogen atoms long enough to experiment on them, what they learn could be huge.
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Fuck yeah!
my thoughts exactly
The real question is, can enough anti-matter be produced economically to by-pass nuclear fusion and solve our energy crisis (since it produces far more energy than fission or fusion)? Not to mention it'd be an awesome way to power spaceships.
Golimaar
it takes far more energy to make antimatter then we could get out of useing it.
I don't know if that will ever change but they have been trying to make fusion produce more energy then is uses for decades and so far have failed to even produse a fusion generator that even makes as much as it uses let alone making more energy then it uses.
so, I'm not holding my breath, I'll be dead of old age long before this becomes anywhere near usable :/
Finally! Now all I need to do is find some dilithium crystals and my warp drive is complete!
10 bucks says the military is already working on the schematics for an antimatter bomb. *shakes his head*
Hey popsi, how about charging these spammers for using the reviews for advertisements. A heafty fee at that when caught.
wuhey, thats good stuffs :)
progress is progess CERN.. now progress faster plz, without more funding for a few mebbie? ;)
I'd like to know just HOW MUCH antihydrogen they've trapped. It would take a lot of it to be of any real use outside of purely scientific tests, so it'd be nice to have that info available.
-IMP ;) :)
First: put this anti matter bottle tech into a warhead and make an anti matter bomb. Use it as a method of deterrence against other countries.
Second: Sit back and watch as cold War part deux begins.
@ Clifford
We are learning at an exponential rate due to this being the age of the Internet. With so many people networked together I wouldn't rule out this being realistic in the next 15-20yrs. Take a look at the first car, computer, airplane, tv. It just takes a bit of time. Maybe a little help from those guys at NASA would help us get on track...
Ok ... I'll admit it. Like most of us, I have had a good bit of modern Chemistry, in my formal, secondary education, but I am NOT Einstein and I am not the world's leading egg-spurt on modern "post-quantum" mechanics ... There ! .
So, as I was reading the title of this article, a large grin grew, across my face, because I realized that it was (literally) a joke to even pretend like I could even (well and truly) know what this "story headline" means.
Picture a stand-up comedian ... a stereo-typical hispanic male comedian with a mexican accent saying something like ...
- " CERN Researchers Trap Antimatter Hydrogen Atoms For the First Time ... [face looks puzzled] ... That sounds important ! ".
Now, I'm just a fat old white dude, from Austin, Texas, and I have read much about string theory and the holographic universe, etc., but as I read the title of this article (the headline of this news-piece), I found myself floundering to guage the significance of this achievement ... and, I realized that I really have no substantive personal reference, to measure this event against.
For some reason, my own ignorance almost made me laugh, out loud, and I am equally amused by neophytes and charlitans who comment here, as if they actually had any clue, at all. ... But I do share "your" enthusiasm and I hope this leads to practical star travel and free energy or anti-gravity or, at least, a flying commode.
Good luck with your 100ms experiments, CERNies !!!
Clifford,
Actually, right now we're not in the anti-matter production business. I'm sure once we find out how to produce just straight anti-matter we will find a more effective way of doing so. Improving on that tech will probably help us produce faster with less energy input required.
Well, folks,
If PopSci, one of our nation's main science rags cannot rid these comment forums of spammers and scammers, then I hold little hope that we will master anti-matter, any time soon.
Anyone want to buy and anti-Gucci purse ? ... Howz about some anti-Prada leather boots ?
=stuxbet=
Wow.
Couldn't wrap my brain around that article, maybe I need PopSci-lite.
I cant wait for antimatter to power spaceships, like in star trek going to be so amazing
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Me, I'm even worse than Buzz Light Year suggests in his assessment of the neophytes and charlatans who post here periodically. I'm a subscriber. Yep, I admit it. For years now. PopMech off and on too. So Buzz and the rest of you neophytes and charlatans can byte my browser if you don't like my nonsense on this site that I pay such a reasonable price to have produced specifically to put up with my nonsense. Ahem...I know this is gonna really sound stupid, but...if we are missing lots of antimatter as suspected, couldn't that just mean that there was a lot more matter at one time for it to come into contact with? And even worse...could this 'dark matter' be whats left from the reaction?
How does an excellent magazine like POPSCI manage to survive in the US with readers as ill educated as these comments demonstrate?
oh yay.... new bombs..
@ rathkennamik? :Maybe if you were better educated you'd know that magazines like PopSci don't necessarily survive because of well, or ill-educated readers. They survive because people like me subscribe. Something I've discovered in my years of reading is that I'm only well or ill-educated as measured by my adherence to this theory or that one, as opposed to this theory or that one, which I don't think have been disseminated enough to rank as a fully working theory. If string theory is totally disproven tomorrow, quite a few PhD's and double doctorate physicists will wake up tomorrow morning well-educated, but they won't finish their work day that way, will they?