Does Antimatter Yield Anti-Gravity?
About this episode
This episode explores whether antimatter experiences gravitational repulsion and discusses a recent experiment conducted by physicists at CERN.
Learn More About 80,000 Hours at: https://www.80000hours.org/spacetime PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime From hoverboards to flying cars to cloud cities, anti-gravity is a staple of science fiction and our dream of a less Earth-bound future. But in the real universe gravity appears to be a purely attractive force. Feels like its main MO is keeping us stuck to the surface of this lonely rock. But maybe if we science hard enough we can remove the fiction from science fiction. For the sake of our flying cars we should at least try. And for many years, physicists have wondered whether a certain well-known exotic material may experience gravitational repulsion from the Earth. That material is antimatter, and physicists at CERN have just completed a very long and very difficult experiment to answer a seemingly simple question: does antimatter fall down, or does it fall up? Check out the Space Time Merch Store https://www.pbsspacetime.com/shop Sign up for the mailing list to get episode notifications and hear…
People in this episode
Host: Matt O'Dowd
Topics covered
- antimatter
- gravity
- science fiction
- physics
- CERN experiments
- gravitational repulsion
Keywords
- antimatter
- gravity
- CERN
- science fiction
- gravitational repulsion
- physics experiments
- hoverboards
- flying cars
Sponsors
PBS
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: CERN, PBS Space Time, Patreon, 80,000 Hours
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- What If Physics IS NOT Describing Reality?
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