Scientists in Geneva are taking some antiprotons out for a spin — a very delicate one — in a truck, in a never-tried-before test drive.
If this so-called antimatter comes into contact with actual matter — even for a fraction of an instant — it will be annihilated in a quick flash of energy. So experts at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN, will, over the course of four hours Tuesday, gingerly wheel out from its lab about 100 antiprotons. They are suspended in a vacuum inside a specially designed box and held in place by supercooled magnets.
