At this point it won't make things worse I guess
CERN gears up to ship antimatter across Europe
151–160 of 188 posts
Re: CERN gears up to ship antimatter across Europe
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe this was already settled? Didn’t it just experience gravity the same way?
Antimater has positively charged electrons (positrons) and negatively charged protons (antiprotons). Its neutrons are antineutrons made of a positron and antiproton. So just the charges are swapped around. Charges interact with electric fields. Gravity is related to mass. It doesn't matter whether the bulk of the mass comes from negatively or positively charged particles. Of course, antimatter has opposite electrical…
> Its neutrons are antineutrons made of a positron and antiproton.
Neutrons are made of on up quarks and two down quark (and a lot of gluons).
Antineutrons are made of on up antiquarks and two down antiquark (and a lot of gluons).
There are no (anti)protons or (anti)electrons inside (anti)neutrons.
> Of course, antimatter has opposite electrical attraction.
Nitpicking: attraction -> charge
> If an antimatter plastic comb attracts antimatter styrofoam crumbs, those crumbs will be repelled by the matter plastic comb (luckily for them).
IIRC the charge in the comb induces a charge in the crumbs. If the charge of the comb is X, the -X charges move closer to the comb, and the X charges move far away. And that those displaced charges create a dipole that is attracted to the comb.
So I think the anti-comb would attract the normal-crumbs and create a huge explossion.
Re: CERN gears up to ship antimatter across Europe
#153Last 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.
The speed of light is a significant limitation at these kinds of scales.
It's not just a massive pile of wiring and magnets etc, it's a massive pile of wiring and magnets which kicks particles around a race track the size of a small town, with absolutely insane timing precision before dumping them into targets the size of buildings, all generating unimaginably huge volumes of data which have to recorded in nanoseconds.
Re: CERN gears up to ship antimatter across Europe
#154Reading around this, i learn that something similar was done in 1993: https://cfp.physics.northwestern.edu/documents/Transport.pdf They built a trap, loaded it with electrons as a test, and drove 5000 miles from Martinez, CA (where the magnet was built) to Cambridge, MA. They mention some unexpected trouble after crossing the Rockies - the steadily increasing atmospheric pressure during the descent reduced helium boi…
It sounds like helium is still presenting a challenge:
> ...changes in the truck's speed produced turbulence in the liquid helium, making measurements of its presence unreliable. Levels had dropped from about 75 percent of maximum to 30 percent by the time the system was reconnected, suggesting that liquid helium presents the key limiting factor in shipping.
This was after just a 4km stint around CERN campus.
Re: CERN gears up to ship antimatter across Europe
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
> picograms I needed to know how much antimatter weighed and this article seemed helpful (though I am poorly placed to know if it’s correct). https://gizmodo.com/how-much-does-antimatter-weigh-492195828
The same as matter basically. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10533407/ The interesting idea behind it is basically that for antimatter a potential wall, imagine a step function which is 0 for negative and 1 for positive and a wave that hits the wall from the negative to the positives, in theory it cannot propagate in the wall, turns out that one solution can propagate in that wall and that's antimatter: It…
Does annhilation produce gravity relevant events as in lokal dark matter increase?
Re: CERN gears up to ship antimatter across Europe
#156...started out in France but briefly crossed the border into Switzerland
"Anything to declare?"
"Yes, antimatter."
"Value for customs?"
"Um..."
Jokes aside, this is really neat. But we should enjoy this 'Wild West' while it lasts. I suspect in generations to come once it's easy to manufacture, antimatter will surely become a controlled substance.
Re: CERN gears up to ship antimatter across Europe
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not technically a cat. Evolved from the ships cat.
Today's fish is trout a la creme. Enjoy your meal. Today's fish is trout a la creme. Enjoy your meal. Today's fish is trout a la creme. Enjoy your meal. Today's fish is trout a la creme. Enjoy your meal. Today's fish is trout a la creme. Enjoy your meal.
I will!
Re: CERN gears up to ship antimatter across Europe
#158Last 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.
> 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.
(Maybe I'm saying the obvious; sorry if that's the case ...) In perception, knowledge greatly affects what we 'see', on a physiological level - our brain's perceptual function is not at all purely sensory, but wired into the rest of our minds. People who have never drunk wine may say it's just unpleasant and a strong taste, and why drink it? People who know it well can perceive all sorts of things, from flavors to colors and more.
With knowledge, the wires, magnets, and electronics, like the sensations of wine, will reveal themselves. A good, passionate source can help ...
Re: CERN gears up to ship antimatter across Europe
#159...started out in France but briefly crossed the border into Switzerland "Anything to declare?" "Yes, antimatter." "Value for customs?" "Um..." Jokes aside, this is really neat. But we should enjoy this 'Wild West' while it lasts. I suspect in generations to come once it's easy to manufacture, antimatter will surely become a controlled substance.
> "Anything to declare?"
> "Yes, antimatter."
It offsets your other customs declarations.
Re: CERN gears up to ship antimatter across Europe
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really. https://home.cern/news/news/experiments/base-experiment-take... Not even a cool new hazmat placard.
This thing? I think it looks super cool. An 80-20 rectangle stuffed with science stuff. https://home.cern/sites/default/files/2024-10/1st-moving-cra...
Missed opportunity to slap on a big warning label saying "ANTIMATTER CONTAINMENT"