this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2023
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science

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[–] someguy3@lemmy.world 85 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months 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.

[–] JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 57 points 11 months ago (1 children)

That might be dark matter you're thinking about

[–] someguy3@lemmy.world 16 points 11 months ago
[–] BloodSlut@lemmy.world 29 points 11 months 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

[–] plistig@feddit.de 24 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Would an anti-banana give off normal matter?

[–] Sargteapot@lemmy.nz 16 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] taigaman@kbin.social 18 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I don't think it would antimatter

[–] elbarto777@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months ago

Argument anihilated!

[–] 768@sh.itjust.works 11 points 11 months ago

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

[–] marcos@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

AFAIK, yes.

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

[–] sushibowl@feddit.nl 17 points 11 months 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.

[–] Evil_incarnate@lemm.ee 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] Redditiscancer789@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

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

...if only...

[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

That’s fucking awesome.

[–] wols@lemm.ee 6 points 11 months ago

El psy kongroo

[–] ChickenAndRice@sh.itjust.works 4 points 11 months ago

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

^dont ^actually ^try ^that

[–] ekZepp@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago

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

[–] SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone 25 points 11 months 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.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 16 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] elbarto777@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Because it involves colliding protons and antiprotons.

[–] _Z1useri@sopuli.xyz 4 points 11 months 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.

[–] elbarto777@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

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

[–] orrk@lemmy.world 15 points 11 months 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

[–] dudinax@programming.dev 9 points 11 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] cmbabul@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago

Then it really is lost!

[–] hansl@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

What happens to Australian antimatter?

[–] orrk@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

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

[–] JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 8 points 11 months 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?

[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] hperrin@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (4 children)

Why would anyone think it would fall up?

[–] edryd@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months 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.

[–] match@pawb.social 3 points 11 months ago

Because things exist

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

[–] foyrkopp@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months 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.