SIGHTINGS


 
Successful Anti-Matter
Factory Set Up In Europe -
2,000 Atoms Per Hour
From www.foxnews.com
From Stig Agermose <Stig_Agermose@online.pol.dk>
9-11-98

 
 
CARDIFF -- Swiss-based scientists said Thursday that they had manufactured anti-matter, one of the staple substances of science fiction, but in such tiny amounts it would be of little use in powering a Star Trek spaceship.
 
The scientists at the European Particle Physics Laboratory, on the Franco-Swiss border, have now set up the world's first anti-matter factory, one of them, Professor Frank Close, told the annual science festival in Wales.
 
Nine atoms of anti-hydrogen were produced just over a year ago. Now, the new factory will produce them at a rate of more than 2,000 atoms per hour, Close said.
 
But Trekkies hoping to see a real-life starship reach warp speed on the anti-matter fuel will have to wait for an awfully long time.
 
"About 44 pounds of anti-matter would be needed to power a spaceship," Close told a news conference.
 
"Thousands of atoms an hour sounds a lot, but kilograms of the stuff would be needed for an astrocruiser which means making over a billion of them."
 
CERN will attempt to compare anti-hydrogen with hydrogen atoms to shed light on one of science's great mysteries.
 
As any sci-fi buff will tell you, when matter meets anti-matter, they annihilate each other in a flash. The scientific consensus is that, when the universe was created, matter and anti-matter emerged equally from the Big Bang. So why did the universe survive?
 
One answer may be that matter and anti-matter are not mirror images of each other, something the scientists hope to find out by comparing anti-hydrogen atoms with hydrogen.
 
If there is a difference, "that itself would be a revolutionary discovery," Close said. "A lot of the foundations of physics will fall."
 
"There is no evidence of any anti-matter in bulk anywhere in the universe now," Close said. "Anti-hydrogen promises to be a tool of fantastic sensitivity for finding out whether a world made of anti-matter would really be indistinguishable from its own."
 
The techniques for capturing anti-matter in electrical and magnetic bottles or traps, ready for analysis, should be in place by spring 1999, he said.
 
But even if the project takes off, it won't have much connection to Star Trek plots. "If ever a real Star Trek with anti-matter engines comes to be, then this is where the technology will have begun," Close said. "But no one in their wildest dreams really imagines that this will come to be."





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