In article <9bdervga4bvello4sg506q56d1gdbk983r@4ax.com>, David Patrick says...

On Sun, 16 Nov 2003 08:19:21 GMT, Sir Artio <nospam@newsranger.com>
wrote:

That's right Patty, DOWN WITH DEBUNKERS and
UP WITH HONEST RESEARCHERS!!!

Hush, Flaffer.

Patty, these are SERIOUS newsgroups, not some
gossip-columns that you and your pals think it is.
FYI - Your name is still on "The List!"  

ANTIMATTER PRODUCTION AT FERMILAB

NEW YORK (Nov 22, 1996 01:36 a.m. EST) -- Physicists have generated antihydrogen
in the world's most powerful particle collider, demonstrating that mass
production of the bizarre antimatter atoms will likely be possible, Fermilab
announced Thursday.

Encountered more often in science fiction than in real life, antimatter is
nevertheless a real natural phenomenon. Every type of matter has an anti-matter
counterpart, with opposite properties.

And just like in Star Trek, if a particle meets an antiparticle, they annihilate
each other.

The Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., began producing
antihydrogen last week, and has made seven atoms of the antielement so far.
Physicists consider the achievement a sign that mass production of antimatter
atoms will be possible with further technological refinements.

"What we've demonstrated is, yes indeed, at this accelerator you can tag this
stuff," said Charles Munger, a physicist at Fermilab. "The fact that it's so
easy makes it practical to design harder experiments."

Although they've been making antiparticles for years, physicists have had a hard
time pairing antiprotons and positrons, the antimatter versions of electrons, to
make atoms.

"It's like trying to assemble a snowflake in a blast furnace," Munger said.

Physicists at Europe's CERN laboratory first achieved the feat in January by
generating nine antihydrogen atoms. So Fermilab, as the Illinois accelerator lab
is known, isn't breaking any new ground by being second to do it.

But in some ways Fermilab's achievement is more significant, Munger said,
because the Illinois accelerator has greater potential to make thousands of
antihydrogen atoms. Large numbers of the particles are needed to do the kinds of
experiments that physicists would like to perform on antimatter atoms.

Most significant would be an experiment testing the behavior of antihydrogen
atoms illuminated by a laser. When atoms of hydrogen are hit with a laser, they
absorb energy and then give it up as light in a process similar to the one that
makes neon signs glow.

Modern physics theories predict that antihydrogen should give off exactly the
same color of light that its matter counterpart does. Physicists would like to
do an experiment to make sure that's correct.

"It would be astonishing to everybody if it did not work," said Stanley Brodsky,
a theoretical physicist at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in California.