Physicists trap a single antimatter particle for a month
scientificamerican.com95 points by mooreds 3 days ago
95 points by mooreds 3 days ago
Exciting results. The electron's magnetic moment is probably the most precise standard model prediction, and Gabrielse's group has measured it with 13 digits of accuracy. The positron is predicted to have exactly the same magnetic moment, but this has not been measured since 1987. With the new trap, they should be able to finally match the electron's precision.
I kind of want to know how they safely deal with its release (destruction)
As the sibling comments say, it's a single positron so the energy released is tiny. I tried to find positrons sources in common life, the best I could find was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positron_emission_tomography The relevant paragraph are
> For a typical dose (245 MBq) of FDG, one of the most common radiotracers used for PET neuroimaging and cancer patient management,[48] the effective radiation dose is 4.7 mSv.[49]
and
> This limitation restricts clinical PET primarily to the use of tracers labelled with fluorine-18, which has a half-life of 110 minutes and can be transported a reasonable distance before use.
Where "245 MBq" means 2*10^8 positrons per second for. And "110 minutes" means a half disappears every 2 hours, so the total sum is equivalent to 4 hours but I'm missing some small constant and they ae probably averaging the dose. I guess "3 hours" is a good compromise but multiply it by 2 or 4 if you prefer a smaller or bigger number. Anyway, 3 hours are 10^4 seconds, so the total numbers of positrons in a PET is approximately 2*10^8 * 10^4 = 2*10^12.
I hope they took precautions against the Camerlengo stealing it
Positrons are just as Catholic as electrons: they both have the same mass!
whats up with all the comments making analogies with AI torture repository?
One might measure the "amount of computation going on" as a proxy for consciousness, but "number of dissipative logic gates" can't be right since one can construct larger reversible circuits containing the same computation (and hence dissipation is a poor measure), although one could then use the total number of bits (including trash bits) as the measure.
but I don't understand why particle physics?
having all other comments (at the time of writing) be about consciousness of individual particles, seems to indicate these commenters specifically believe particle physics or antimatter to directly describe consciousness?
Or is this some kind of "disinfo inoculation campaign" to render us immune to "sentient rights propaganda"?
It's definitely just jokes due to using the word 'trap'. You might need to get some sleep lol
I don't see comments on SI's website. I assume you mean here. Those are jokes.
To be fair, I can see why they didn't realise that considering none of them are remotely funny.
Does this hurt the positron?
Poor thing, all alone
It could have been an entire universe, like ours, if some theories/cosmologies are correct :)
of course the cyclotron going clockwise.
The title of the research article is "One-Positron Quantum Cyclotron" https://cfp.physics.northwestern.edu/documents/2026OnePositr... so you are right.
That's matter cruelty. We need more ethical ways to study those poor things. Does anyone know what happened after the experiment ? Did they finally let it go?
It was given freedom at the end of experiment, and was immediately eaten by its abundant natural predator, just like it happens in nature.
Matter rights matter.
But antimatter rights antimatter? Or do they become lefts.
It's worse than that. They annihilated it completely.
Drawing the line at matter welfare when the world still has this much human suffering will never stop being wild to me
humans are also matter
I was going to comment "I bet it's pissed" and then worried about drawing dang on myself, but you started it... Also: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1254917172263794.
"Wild? I was absolutely livid!"