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Scientists trap and tame a single particle of antimatter for months (news.northwestern.edu)
submitted 1 day ago by to c/science@lemmy.world
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[–] 13 points 1 day ago* (12 children)

"Would love to actually see anti-matter" - are you being literal here? because that would require a vacuum between your eyes and antimatter that emits at a visible frequency. Not entirely impossible, but detection and recording of an anti-hydrogen transition wavelength is more easily achievable. This might be no more than an LCD display indicating a non-zero number though. Exciting for sure, but not necessarily a visual spectacle.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 day ago (5 children)

    You did not just write "LCD display". Feel ashamed! >:V

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  • [–] 1 point 21 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

    Yes, to highlight how dull witnessing antimatter could actually be for a non-scientist. LOL. -- Oh crap, I just poured granola in my coffee instead of my yogurt parfait.

    Edit: ah yes well we don't see many LCDs anymore so I give a hint for touchscreen kids who might not know what LCD means (not Least Common Denominator).

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  • [–] 9 points 1 day ago* (5 children)

    Yeah very literal. Would need millions of atoms of the stuff. Actually maybe that's too dangerous lol

    We have managed to see a single strontium atom - link. Maybe that's attainable with anti-matter.

    But yeah you're right, capturing an anti-hyrdogen emission would be an huge achievement itself!

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  • [–] 6 points 1 day ago (3 children)

    Make the glass of anti water on the moon just in case heh.

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  • [–] 2 points 19 hours ago

    Just for fun I did the Maths.

    Rougly a 100ml glass of anti-water has 100g of anti-water (assuming same density as normal pure water, which is around 1).

    When anti-mater contacts mater it transforms into energy according to E = mc^2^ were E is in Joule and m is in kg.

    For 100g of anti-water to turn into energy in this way it also needs 100g of normal mater, so the number is doubled.

    Using the rounded 300,000,000 m/s for the constant c, the energy released by the annihilation of a 100ml glass of anti-water (and the matching 100g of normal mater) would be 1.8e+16 Joules, equivalent to around 4.3 Megatons of TNT.

    So basically a regular nuclear bomb.

    PS: I actually expected it would be much more energy before I did the maths.

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