Yesterday's post was about a self-taught 'engineer' conducting an experiment in an attempt to prove a pseudoscientific thesis... it was nice to see him using empiricism in his quest for knowledge, though his efforts... uhhhh... fell flat. Today, I am more interested in real science- the CERN crew has been able to create and maintain antimatter for up to twenty-four hours.
One of the mysteries of the universe is the prevalence of matter- if the Big Bang had produced equal amounts of matter and antimatter, the opposite-charged particles would have annihilated each other, resulting in No Universe At All. A small asymmetry at the beginning would have resulted in the current mass (heh heh) asymmetry. It's all very heady stuff, but suffice it to say that real discoveries are being made, and nobody has to plaster themselves onto the desert floor to make them.
Antimatter has come up in a few of the Secret Science Club lectures I have recapped. I imagine it will become a more common subject as physicists better learn how to create and maintain the stuff, even if it really wouldn't be so good for power generation.
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3 comments:
Had not heard about this.
Had heard a lot about Trump though.
So it goes.
Thanks.
Worth remembering that we've been using antimatter for decades. PET Scans (Positron-emission tomography) have been in regular use since the 1980s. Lots of cool science and applications out of particle physics...
Bad enough 'software engineers' coming along and diluting engineering's good name, now we have to deal with this jag-off too?
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