CERN gears up to ship antimatter across Europe • Hacker News Board

Re: CERN gears up to ship antimatter across Europe

#41

Post by mlindner » Thu, May 22, 2025, 4:17 AM UTC

throwup238 wrote: post #23

sargun wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the biggest barrier to creating a lot of antimatter?

Energy. Creating a single anti-hydrogen atom requires an absurd amount of energy to first create a collision in a particle accelerator and then capture that anti-hydrogen before it eliminates against another atom. Only about 0.01% of the energy used to operate the particle collider creates antimatter, the vast majority of which is impossible to capture. All in all, the efficiency of the entire process - if you were t…

Has there been research on more efficient ways to generate antiprotons? (By the way anti-hydrogen isn't how you would store it as anti-hydrogen can't be trapped.)

Re: CERN gears up to ship antimatter across Europe

#42

Post by mlindner » Thu, May 22, 2025, 4:19 AM UTC

pezezin wrote: post #17

Last week I had the chance to visit CERN's Antimatter Factory, and let me tell you I was feeling like a child on Christmas Day. The ridiculously advanced technology required to produce only a few picograms of antimatter is truly impressive. That they are considering sending it hundreds of km away is mind blowing.

I've seen this expressed before, but every picture I've seen of CERN just looks like a massive pile of wiring, magnets and generic electronics. So I'm not sure why people react like you do towards it. Is it different from seeing it in pictures?

To me things like tokamak fusion reactors or rockets or even places like the massive piles of pipe work outside of SpaceX's launch site feel way cooler.

Re: CERN gears up to ship antimatter across Europe

#43

Post by fisherjeff » Thu, May 22, 2025, 4:24 AM UTC

boguscoder wrote: post #14

AsmodiusVI wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dan Brown is definitely taking notes.

Or on contrary expecting some sort of royalties

Hopefully enough to afford another specially commissioned landscape by acclaimed painter Vincent van Gogh or a signed first edition by revered scriptwriter William Shakespeare

Re: CERN gears up to ship antimatter across Europe

#44

Post by poincaredisk » Thu, May 22, 2025, 4:38 AM UTC

mlindner wrote: post #42

pezezin wrote: post #17

Last week I had the chance to visit CERN's Antimatter Factory, and let me tell you I was feeling like a child on Christmas Day. The ridiculously advanced technology required to produce only a few picograms of antimatter is truly impressive. That they are considering sending it hundreds of km away is mind blowing.

I've seen this expressed before, but every picture I've seen of CERN just looks like a massive pile of wiring, magnets and generic electronics. So I'm not sure why people react like you do towards it. Is it different from seeing it in pictures? To me things like tokamak fusion reactors or rockets or even places like the massive piles of pipe work outside of SpaceX's launch site feel way cooler.

You are getting downvoted but it made me wonder (I visited CERN a few years ago). I guess there are two aspects in play. One, the pile is massive, which naturally inspires awe, especially in person. Two, I know that what I'm looking at is actually a unique super advanced piece of technology, which took countless hours to produce, and that influences how one sees it.

Re: CERN gears up to ship antimatter across Europe

#45

Post by ycui1986 » Thu, May 22, 2025, 4:42 AM UTC

one of the most interesting of antimatter experiments is that if they somehow showed antimatter only experience 60% gravity, that will be huge. (earlier result of measuring antimatter’s gravity showed they don’t posses antigravity, but they seems to experiences less gravity. I guess a dedicated follow up experiment will likely get better measurement on whether antimatter indeed experience less gravity.)

Re: CERN gears up to ship antimatter across Europe

#46

Post by db48x » Thu, May 22, 2025, 4:44 AM UTC

mlindner wrote: post #38

db48x wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s because it’s not really a hazardous material. 70 antiprotons annihilating with 70 protons releases a grand total of 2×10⁻⁸ Joules.

That exponent is still a lot larger than I would've expected for something measured in three digits of atoms. I thought it would've been in the double negative digits.

Yea, c² is pretty big.

Re: CERN gears up to ship antimatter across Europe

#47

Post by DocTomoe » Thu, May 22, 2025, 4:45 AM UTC

hedora wrote: post #34

DocTomoe wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a time that was said about nukes. They didn't really make sense. We were only able to make minuscule amounts of U-235 / Plutonium at very high cost... and had we wanted evil bombs, we had a thousand ways already to make them. Didn't stop people then. And it won't stop sufficiently criminal governments today.

Look up comparative damage stats for Tokyo and Hiroshima/Nagasaki in WWII. The nukes were nothing compared to firebombing. Now do the same for Gaza and anywhere other than WWII Warsaw. Carpet bombing isn’t necessary if you can aim with precision at the support infrastructure of occupied structures.

You're making my point: We had comparatively worse and cheaper ways to butcher each others. And yet, we build nuclear bombs.

Carpet bombing is not meant for eliminating military targets - it's an act of state-sponsored terrorism to get a population to rise against its leaders. Only, it has been proven over and over again: That doesn't work and often results in the exact opposite, making them rally behind the flag against the barbarous enemy who would attack civilians. Which is why we stopped doing that. Mostly.

Re: CERN gears up to ship antimatter across Europe

#48

Post by whatnow37373 » Thu, May 22, 2025, 4:52 AM UTC

ycui1986 wrote: post #45

one of the most interesting of antimatter experiments is that if they somehow showed antimatter only experience 60% gravity, that will be huge. (earlier result of measuring antimatter’s gravity showed they don’t posses antigravity, but they seems to experiences less gravity. I guess a dedicated follow up experiment will likely get better measurement on whether antimatter indeed experience less gravity.)

I believe this was already settled? Didn’t it just experience gravity the same way?

Re: CERN gears up to ship antimatter across Europe

#49

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 22, 2025, 5:10 AM UTC

mlindner wrote: post #42

pezezin wrote: post #17

Last week I had the chance to visit CERN's Antimatter Factory, and let me tell you I was feeling like a child on Christmas Day. The ridiculously advanced technology required to produce only a few picograms of antimatter is truly impressive. That they are considering sending it hundreds of km away is mind blowing.

I've seen this expressed before, but every picture I've seen of CERN just looks like a massive pile of wiring, magnets and generic electronics. So I'm not sure why people react like you do towards it. Is it different from seeing it in pictures? To me things like tokamak fusion reactors or rockets or even places like the massive piles of pipe work outside of SpaceX's launch site feel way cooler.

[deleted]

Re: CERN gears up to ship antimatter across Europe

#50

Post by llimos » Thu, May 22, 2025, 5:11 AM UTC

fisherjeff wrote: post #43

boguscoder wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or on contrary expecting some sort of royalties

Hopefully enough to afford another specially commissioned landscape by acclaimed painter Vincent van Gogh or a signed first edition by revered scriptwriter William Shakespeare

You'll enjoy this review: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/10049454/Dont-make-fun-o...

Edit: Indeed you were quoting it :)