Physicists trap a single antimatter particle for a month

(scientificamerican.com)

57 points | by mooreds 2 days ago

6 comments

  • bozdemir 1 hour ago
    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?
    • gcascio 1 hour ago
      Matter rights matter.
      • Scarblac 57 minutes ago
        But antimatter rights antimatter? Or do they become lefts.
        • myaccountonhn 38 minutes ago
          It doesn't matter if it's antimatter.
    • consensus1 1 hour ago
      It's worse than that. They annihilated it completely.
      • mixtureoftakes 54 minutes ago
        Drawing the line at matter welfare when the world still has this much human suffering will never stop being wild to me
    • exe34 12 minutes ago
      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!"

  • DoctorOetker 28 minutes ago
    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"?

    • KPGv2 21 minutes ago
      I don't see comments on SI's website. I assume you mean here. Those are jokes.
  • dguest 2 hours ago
    Direct link to article: https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.08147
  • jimnotgym 2 hours ago
    I hope they took precautions against the Camerlengo stealing it
    • ButlerianJihad 55 minutes ago
      Positrons are just as Catholic as electrons: they both have the same mass!
  • snailshare 2 days ago
    Does this hurt the positron?
    • brenkc 2 hours ago
      Call PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Antimatter)
      • sirlancer 53 minutes ago
        Physicists for the Ethical Treatment of Atoms
    • arj 1 hour ago
      Poor thing, all alone
      • Razengan 1 hour ago
        It could have been an entire universe, like ours, if some theories/cosmologies are correct :)
    • ggyyyg 1 hour ago
      [flagged]
  • pizzafeelsright 46 minutes ago
    of course the cyclotron going clockwise.