PA5COR
06-06-2011, 03:54 AM
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/06/982458/-CERN-Scientists-Trap-Anti-Matter-For-16-Minutes?via=siderec
Scientists from the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva just announced that have trapped and stored anti-matter for 16 minutes. The previous record was 2 seconds. The Telegraph of London, reports (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8558603/Scientists-trap-and-study-elusive-anti-matter.html) this 5,000 fold improvement over the previous record, will enable potentially break-through research into what happened after the universe was created with the Big Bang, 13.6 billion years ago.
Scientists have trapped and stored antihydrogen atoms for a record 16 minutes, a stunning technical feat that promises deeper insights into the mysteries of anti-matter.
Particles and anti-particles annihilate each other in a small flash of energy when they collide. At the moment of the big bang, nearly 14 billion years ago, matter and anti-matter are thought to have existed in equal quantities. If that balance had persisted, the observable Universe we inhabit would never have come into being. For unknown reasons -- and fortunately for us -- Nature seemed to have a slight preference for matter, and today anti-matter is rare. This asymmetry remains one of the greatest riddles in particle physics. ...
"We can keep the antihydrogen atoms trapped for 1,000 seconds. This is long enough to begin to study them," said Jeffrey Hangst, spokesman for the scientists.
Scientists will now look for "violations" or discrepancies in something called the charge-parity-time reversal (CPT) symmetry.
Not sure how this will balance the budget though...:mrgreen:
Scientists from the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva just announced that have trapped and stored anti-matter for 16 minutes. The previous record was 2 seconds. The Telegraph of London, reports (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8558603/Scientists-trap-and-study-elusive-anti-matter.html) this 5,000 fold improvement over the previous record, will enable potentially break-through research into what happened after the universe was created with the Big Bang, 13.6 billion years ago.
Scientists have trapped and stored antihydrogen atoms for a record 16 minutes, a stunning technical feat that promises deeper insights into the mysteries of anti-matter.
Particles and anti-particles annihilate each other in a small flash of energy when they collide. At the moment of the big bang, nearly 14 billion years ago, matter and anti-matter are thought to have existed in equal quantities. If that balance had persisted, the observable Universe we inhabit would never have come into being. For unknown reasons -- and fortunately for us -- Nature seemed to have a slight preference for matter, and today anti-matter is rare. This asymmetry remains one of the greatest riddles in particle physics. ...
"We can keep the antihydrogen atoms trapped for 1,000 seconds. This is long enough to begin to study them," said Jeffrey Hangst, spokesman for the scientists.
Scientists will now look for "violations" or discrepancies in something called the charge-parity-time reversal (CPT) symmetry.
Not sure how this will balance the budget though...:mrgreen: