Physicists at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (Cern) have announced they have created and trapped anti-matter, one of the biggest mysteries of modern science.
This content was published on
1 minute
swissinfo.ch and agencies
In an article in the journal Nature, Cern said it had produced anti-hydrogen atoms – the opposite of a hydrogen atom – in a vacuum and kept them viable for about a tenth of a second: “Long enough to study them,” it said.
Some 38 anti-hydrogen atoms have now been trapped long enough for scientists to take a look at them in their quest to understand what happened to anti-matter after the Big Bang explosion that created the universe.
“For reasons that no one yet understands, nature ruled out anti-matter,” Jeffrey Hangst, a spokesman for the “Alpha” experiment, said in a statement. “This inspires us to work that much harder to see if anti-matter holds some secret.”
The research centre is located on the Swiss-French border near Geneva.
Popular Stories
More
Swiss Abroad
How centuries of Swiss emigrants left their mark on the US
Bodycams: essential for good law enforcement, or a privacy risk?
Did you ever come across bodycams in your place of residence and if so, how do you think the use of bodycams alter the relationship between the public and (transport) police?
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.
Read more
More
New discovery excites Cern scientists
This content was published on
Researchers at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Cern) say the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) appears to have produced a small amount of the matter that existed in the first moments of the universe. They said colliding particles seem to be creating “hot dense matter” that would have existed microseconds after the Big Bang and…
This content was published on
The LHC Sound project aims to raise awareness about the work deep under the French-Swiss border and to develop a way for scientists to listen to the data and identify the Higgs particle, if and when they detect it. One of the widely publicised aims of the LHC, the world’s biggest atom smasher, is to…
This content was published on
Though it will probably be months before computers at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Cern) can make sense of what exactly happened, researchers hailed the experiment as a real Star Trek moment. “We are going into new territory where no man has gone before,” Jean-Pierre Revol, head of heavy ion collisions, told swissinfo.ch. “Today…
This content was published on
He said it with a wonderful smile, but it’s not really a joke. David spent two hours with us at Cern explaining how this true cross-border endeavor works. CERN stands for the European Organization for Nuclear Research, and its 27km-circumference particle accelerator runs under both Swiss and French territory just to the northwest of Geneva.…
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.