IT WAS not so long ago that we were hearing how CERN's Large Hadron Collider would produce planet-destroying black holes. Now Dan Brown's blockbuster, due to hit the big screen next month, provides us with another supposed danger emanating from the particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland: antimatter, the seed of a weapon of unsurpassed destructive power.
While Brown's take on antimatter is fictional, the stuff certainly isn't. We see its signature in cosmic rays, and it is routinely made in high-energy collisions inside particle smashers the world over. In hospitals, radioactive molecules that emit antimatter particles are used for imaging in the technique known as positron emission tomography.
Brown was right about one thing, though: if you want answers to the burning questions of antimatter, CERN is the place to go.
While Brown's take on antimatter is fictional, the stuff certainly isn't. We see its signature in cosmic rays, and it is routinely made in high-energy collisions inside particle smashers the world over. In hospitals, radioactive molecules that emit antimatter particles are used for imaging in the technique known as positron emission tomography.
Brown was right about one thing, though: if you want answers to the burning questions of antimatter, CERN is the place to go.
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