• Question: Is there a safe way to generate antimatter without it decay or reacting instantly with matter?

    Asked by florida to Andrew, Ash, Gem, Paige, SJ on 2 Jul 2012.
    • Photo: SarahJayne Boulton

      SarahJayne Boulton answered on 2 Jul 2012:

      As far as I know, antimatter can mbe made, trapped and stored at particle accelerators like those at CERN in Geneva – this is probably Andrew’s area in terms of providing a clear answer, but I did find this little page while trying to educate myself!

      http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/technology/warp/antistat.html

    • Photo: Ashley Cadby

      Ashley Cadby answered on 2 Jul 2012:

      You can trap anti-matter in magnetic fields. Generally its really difficult to make antimatter so making large enough quantities is really difficult and I can’t see it ever causing a problem

    • Photo: Paige Brown

      Paige Brown answered on 2 Jul 2012:

      Well, I’m pretty sure you can only create antimatter in a particle accelerator that is sealed up in a vacuum, so that it DOESNT instantly annihilate with its collisions with other matter!! The experiments have to be very controlled in the first place to create the matter… and those particle accelerators have to be very clean!!!

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