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General Discussion => The Speakeasy: OOG/Off-topic Discussion => Topic started by: Ken on 04 May 2011, 14:22

Title: Antimatter
Post by: Ken on 04 May 2011, 14:22
They've been watching it... (http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-05/cern-physicists-trap-antimatter-full-quarter-hour-eclipsing-previous-efforts)  Coming soon to hybrid gun shops near you.
Title: Re: Antimatter
Post by: hellgremlin on 05 May 2011, 12:42
It amazes me whenever we discover some new particle, or manage to contain some horribly unstable exotic matter for fleeting moments of time. The search for the Higgs Boson is pretty exciting to me, even though I don't understand much about physics of that sort.

I also love reading about paranoid doomsday scenarios involving exotic matter experiments that spill out of the lab and end up instaboiling the planet into a hot soupy blob of quarks and neutrinos.
Title: Re: Antimatter
Post by: Saede Riordan on 05 May 2011, 12:48
If it turns out antimatter falls up. It'll change everything. Scientists are pretty sure it won't...but just think about it.
Title: Re: Antimatter
Post by: lallara zhuul on 05 May 2011, 13:12
Cavorite?
Title: Re: Antimatter
Post by: Aria Jenneth on 05 May 2011, 15:32
Quote from: hellgremlin on 05 May 2011, 12:42
I also love reading about paranoid doomsday scenarios involving exotic matter experiments that spill out of the lab and end up instaboiling the planet into a hot soupy blob of quarks and neutrinos.

The really fun one is the strangelet. If I understand it properly, it's a hypothetical particle that could potentially change anything it comes in contact with into more of itself.

Poof! There goes the world.

... Not very likely, though apparently some physicists thought it more likely than others. I'm not sure whether the argument's been settled yet.
Title: Re: Antimatter
Post by: Ammentio Oinkelmar on 05 May 2011, 16:50
Quote from: Aria Jenneth on 05 May 2011, 15:32
... Not very likely, though apparently some physicists thought it more likely than others. I'm not sure whether the argument's been settled yet.
More (http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/lhc/safety-en.html) is known about them every day.
Title: Re: Antimatter
Post by: Amann Karris on 05 May 2011, 19:26
Thunder storms create antimatter. (http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/01/12/storms-create-thunder-lightning-antimatter/)  We're playing catch-up to good old mother nature and father universe.

Also, technically nothing "falls", Nikita. ;)  Poor, small-brained modern scientists and their primitive concept of "gravity".

Finally, anyone else a Stargate fan?  That picture at the top of the antimatter article looks suspiciously like a Zero-Point Module (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Zeropointmodule.jpg).
Title: Re: Antimatter
Post by: Saede Riordan on 05 May 2011, 21:07
It looks a bit like it I suppose.