this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2023
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[–] [email protected] 89 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (5 children)

Huh I didn't know antimatter was a completely confirmed thing.

After making a thin gas of thousands of antihydrogen atoms, researchers pushed it up a 3-metre-tall vertical shaft surrounded by superconducting electromagnetic coils. These can create a kind of magnetic ‘tin can’ to keep the antimatter from coming into contact with matter and annihilating. Next, the researchers let some of the hotter antiatoms escape, so that the gas in the can got colder, down to just 0.5 °C above absolute zero — and the remaining antiatoms were moving slowly.

The researchers then gradually weakened the magnetic fields at the top and bottom of their trap — akin to removing the lid and base of the can — and detected the antiatoms using two sensors as they escaped and annihilated. When opening any gas container, the contents tend to expand in all directions, but in this case the antiatoms’ low velocities meant that gravity had an observable effect: most of them came out of the bottom opening, and only one-quarter out of the top.

[–] [email protected] 61 points 2 years ago (1 children)

That might be dark matter you're thinking about

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 years ago
[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 years ago (5 children)

Not only does it exist, but bananas give off a fair bit of antimatter due to their decaying potassium isotopes.

Allegedly, im not smart enough to verify it

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Would an anti-banana give off normal matter?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 years ago

Does it matter?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 years ago

AFAIK, yes, you might wanna look into β+- and β־-decay

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago

AFAIK, yes.

There are some very small differences between matter and anti-matter, but I don't think any of them affect radioactivity.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Bananas produce antimatter, but just barely. The main radioactive material in bananas is Potassium-40. A banana is about 0.358% potassium in all. About 0.012% of naturally occurring potassium is the radioactive Potassium-40. Only 0.001% of all radioactive decay events in postassium-40 produce an antiparticle (a positron).

An average banana produces a single positron about every 75 minutes.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Brb. Making a fruit-based matter-antimatter annihilation power plant.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

You kid but as a kid when I learned about potatoes and lemon batteries I was like "SCALE THIS UP NOW!"

...if only...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

That’s fucking awesome.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

El psy kongroo

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago

We need a Far Side where ape scientists are colliding two bannanas at high speed

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

They say if you microwave bananas, you will get green gel bananas

^dont ^actually ^try ^that

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 years ago

Antimatter was first observed physically back in 1932. A positron, more specifically. Its existence has been confirmed, and accepted, for ages, and some of our technology already operates using antimatter to do its tasks.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 years ago

anti-matter? ya, we have been observing it for quite a while (testing is difficult for reasons), it naturally accumulates in parts of the Van Allen belt.

Dark matter on the other hand is still completely up for question

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The Large Hadron Collider wouldn't work if antimatter wasn't confirmed.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Because it involves colliding protons and antiprotons.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

No, it either does proton-proton collisions or heavy ions, both regular matter. At TeV energies the added energy from anihalating matter with antimatter isn't that much of a contribution anymore that it would justify the added complexity.

Its predecessor collided positrons with electrons though. But the LEP was more for precise refinement of known interactions and not so much about reaching the highest possible energies.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Sure, but it doesn't just collide protons and antiprotons, does it?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago (2 children)

But from the antimatter's perspective, it falls up.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

Then it really is lost!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

What happens to Australian antimatter?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

it falls to the earth, like you would expect normal matter to do above the equator

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Hmm interesting. I wondered if it would be attracted or repelled by matter. It does annihilate when it comes in contact with mater, right?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Isn’t “falling up” just another way of saying that it’s repelled by matter?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago
[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

So then it is not really antimatter in the sense that it is completely opposite?

So antimatter still has positive mass?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Duh. Negative mass doesn't exist. Antiparticles just have an opposite charge.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (4 children)

Why would anyone think it would fall up?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

Because there is no theory of quantum gravity we have no idea how gravity could interact with anti matter. By showing that antimatter behaves just like matter when interacting with gravity we can learn a lot about it and cut the number of possible theories of quantum gravity in half.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

Because things exist

(the antigravity hypothesis was an attempt to explain why matter and antimatter haven't annihilated each other)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Because one common assumption was that the universe might contain as much antimatter as matter.

Which begs the question: Where did it go? We would notice a huge amount of annihilation reactions in the solar system.

"Antimatter falls up" (is gravitationally repelled instead of attracted by normal matter) was an easy hypothesis to explain that.