Antimatter is all nice and easy, as long as you don't deal with it. Being just a concept, it doesn't do wrong, nor good, for what matters, to anyone. But if that antimatter comes to matter, so to speak, things are going to be sparky.
In an article published today on CERN home site, I learned that, for the first time in history, physicists were able to measure light spectrum of antimatter. They did this by creating and then trapping in a magnetic field a few antihydrogen atoms. Don't ask me how they did it, because it clearly goes over my level of comprehension.
What they found, in terms of spectrum value, seems to prove the Standard Model of particle physics, which says that the Hydrogen matter and antimatter atoms light spectrum should have the same values.
I think that this discovery, in itself, is very important, but, to be honest, the drive to write this short note was different.
As I was trying to understand how they did it (yes, I know I am limited, but that doesn't mean I should stop learning) I suddenly realized how elusive this all thing is. Scientist are not measuring atoms, they are measuring the spectrum of the light when electrons are moving from one atom orbit to another. It's not like they see those tiny spheres. Nope. They see only what those spheres are doing.
Science measures only the consequences, seldom the causes.
When we look at the stars, we're not seeing the stars. We're seeing some manifestation of them, which has been created very long time ago. When scientists are talking about galaxies, they don't see the galaxies, they are measuring some radio waves and they infer the shape and the size and the direction of movement of something. If you really think at it, this is rather spooky. Not because there is an inherent danger in it, but because of the overwhelming level of uncertainty. We're describing the universe by stacking up inference on top of inference. It's like building a card castle and hoping it won't collapse.
Sometimes I feel like we are just blind people stumbling in an universe filled with stuff we cannot comprehend.
image source: CERN
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
https://steemit.com/~witnesses