(Note – This is posted a day later than planned after mid-composition delay to replace a modem.)

Boosted by hot press releases from institutions taking part in the int’l effort and publication in the esteemed journal Nature, some news outlets are attaching tremendous excitement to word from an international consortium that it not only generated some supercold hydrogen analogs made of antiparticles, but held them prisoner. Briefly. That came in a specially crafted octupolar magnetic field that nudges them into a crowd by taking advantage of the slight polarity in atoms that, overall, have no electric charge.

To read some of the stories you’d think they were shaking the very foundations of physics – rewriting the laws of the universe – opening a new window into creation – glimpsing the infinite – or (you plug in your own hyper-cliche).

It is diverting enough. An anti-proton with a positron in its thrall? That’s neat. But, while coolly levitating in a photonic grail of inward-nudging EM gradients, until it does something  that defies or extends known physics it’s not, one may suspect, quite the breathless new venture into mystery that some accounts suggest. But it is an impressive technical feat and likely prelude to new science. It is a story simply because antimatter has an otherworldly, semi-mythical sci-fi aura to it no matter what the specific news. Ergo, a sure fire lure to the imaginations and eyeballs of many readers.

• AP – Frank Jordans: In breakthrough, scientists trap antimatter atoms ; This story is careful. Notable is an earlier and frothier writeup, here in the Sydney Morning Herald under Physics riddle: scientists claim Big Bang breakthrough,  attributed to AP. Unclear is whether the latter sparked a rewrite, or was by a different reporter, or both.
• Antimatter – Alexandra Witze: Antimatter, here to stay ; Several outlets bring up novelist Dan Brown and his Angels & Demons fiction on how to blow up the Vatican and a lot else. So does Alex – as an opening  joke. Next graf says, in effect, not really. She also provides welcome detail on a competing group’s more ambitious plans – while it lost the race to bottle the first batch, to make bigger antihydrogen blobs for study and right in the next door stall at CERN.
• Discovery News – Larry O’Hanlon: Trapped Antimatter Could Help Spill Universe’s Secrets ;
• Times of  India: Sci-fi a reality: In a first, antimatter captured ; The hed is fine, but the lede shows what happens when rewrite gets hold of copy from “agencies”: Scientists claimed a breakthrough on Thursday in solving one of the biggest riddles of physics….. Not even close. Now, they will see if antihydrogen has any riddles to ask them.
• National Geographic – Ker Than: Antimatter Atoms Trapped for First Time – “A Big Deal” :
• Christian Science Monitor – Peter Spotts: Antimatter breakthrough could help scientists unravel Big Bang mystery ; a calm explanation why this could lead to something big.
• Economist: Gotcha! Antihydrogen atoms are captured for the first time ;
• NatureNews – Eugenie Samuel Reich: Antimatter held for questioning ; That’s what I call a perfect hed for the savvy readers of a journal such as Nature.
• Financial Times – Andrew Jack: ‘Anti-matter’ trapped in physics breakthrough ; Good enough job. One is unsure why anti-matter is put in quotes that weaken its impact – as though there is another good opinion what it may be.
• Register – Lewis Page: Has CERN made the VATICAN ANTIMATTER BOMB for real? ; No, he says. But read it, if only for the analogy about global thermonuclear war. And the boffins, always the boffins.
• SF Chronicle – David Perlman: UC Berkeley physicists trap antimatter atoms ; Good good except, oh ’tis hard to twit a pal and mentor, but as Planck, Heisenberg, Schrodinger and others figured out early in the last century, a positron does not jitter around an antiproton in a manner in any way, except vaguely metaphorically, resembling the orbit of a planet of a star. Don’t tell Dave I said that.
• Calgary Herald – Jamie Komarnicki: Calgary researchers make sci-fi antimatter a reality :

And finally, straight to Star Trek…

• PC Magazine – Peter Pachal: Antimatter Breakthrough Could Lead to Starships, Says Scientist ; Yes, scientist. Singular. A well-known one.

Grist for the Mill:

CERN Press Release ; UCBerkeley Press Release ; Lawrence Berkeley Nat’l Lab Press Release ; U. of Liverpool Press Release ; University of Calgary Press Release ;

- Charlie Petit

This entry was posted on Friday, November 19th, 2010 at 12:34 pm and is filed under Science Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.