… but this would violate the second law of journalism (sensationalism can never spontaneously decrease), so it will probably never happen.
Antihydrogen could lead to antigravity
Scientist also want to find out if the anti-atoms exhibit antigravity effects. This would mean the atoms would fall up instead of down. Since this would be a violation of the law of conservation of energy it is unlikely, however many scientist still find the idea worth exploring.
IOW, antihydrogen could lead to antigravity if some well-established physical principle turns out to be wrong. It hasn’t been ruled out, so it’s technically not a lie, but amore accurate title like “Gravity properties of antihydrogen to be tested” is way too boring for an article that’s not about bat-boy or some new diet. Which it could be — they could have gone with “Shed ten pounds with new antihydrogen diet!” Boy did they ever blow it on this one.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1104.4982
“Confinement of antihydrogen for 1000 seconds”
http://www.examiner.com/technology-in-national/antihydrogen-could-lead-to-antigravity
“Antihydrogen could lead to antigravity”]
Do not miss the “hydrogen atom” at the bottom. That all by itself qualifies for a forged shitanium diversity award.
How does *stuff* locally vacuum free fall (The Equivalence Principle, EP)? IDENTICALLY. No measurable observable can influence the EP. Predictive gravitation is geometry. Composition or field are not mentioned; only anonymous coordinates interact. (Photons and deeply relativistic particles vacuum free fall at twice the local acceleration, along null geodesic paths, a definitive test of general relativity vs. Newton.)
1) Local centers of mass vacuum free fall along identical (parallel-displaced) minimum action trajectories at identical rates independent of all measurable observables.
2) The vacuum world line of a body immersed in a gravitational field is independent of all measurable observables.
3) The local effects of motion in a curved space (gravitation) are indistinguishable from those of an accelerated observer in flat space, without exception.
4) Mass (measured with a balance) and weight (measured with a scale) are locally in identical ratio for all bodies (the opening page to Newton’s Principia).
Physics is not stupid, physics has looked. Eötvös experiments detect no composition or field EP violations to 5·10^(-14) difference/average [1]. Lunar laser ranging observes zero Nordtvedt effect. 1.74 solar-mass 465.1 Hz pulsar PSR J1903 0327 plus a 1.05 solar-mass star are a 95.17-day orbit binary system [2]. 15.3% (AP4 model radius) [3] vs. 0.0001% gravitational binding energy, 1.8·10^11 vs. 30 surface gees, 2·10^8 gauss vs. 5 gauss magnetic field; compressed superfluid neutrons and superconductive protons [4] vs. proton-electron plasma, extreme isospin and lepton number divergence; and pulsar 11% (AP4) of lightspeed equatorial spin velocity are differentially EP-inert for orbit, periastron precession, and gravitation radiation orbital decay. 1.97 solar-mass 317.5 Hz PSR J1614-2230 and a 0.5 solar-mass He-C-O white dwarf contrast pulsars with Fermi-degenerate matter, 20% versus 0.01% gravitational binding energy [5], to no EP anomaly.
The only EP test physics refuses to perform is geometric, the one that could work. Do opposite shoes violate the EP? Geometric chirality can be observed and calculated [6], but it cannot be measured. Optical chirality is electronic. Its intensity is not coupled to atomic mass distribution,
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/norbors.gif
Same atomic mass distributions, wildly different specific rotations
Crystallography provides inverse geometric parity test masses (opposite homochirality along all axes). The space groups are 230 unique periodic self-similar configurations of anonymous points in 3-space. 11 pairs of enantiomorphic space groups are mathematically chiral independent of contents. Three pairs of enantiomorphic space groups contain no racemic and no conflicting sense screw axes within a single space group: P3(1)21 | P3(2)21 (e.g., alpha-quartz), P3(1)12 | P3(2)12, and P3(1) | P3(2) (e.g. gamma-glycine).
Chemically and macroscopically identical, inverse geometric parity test masses are fabricated from left- versus right-handed single crystals of alpha-quartz. Hemi-parity controls are each against amorphous fused silica. Another candidate is left- versus right-handed single crystals of gamma-glycine. Hemi-parity controls are each against alpha-glycine in achiral space group P2(1)/n.
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/erotor1.jpg
Two geometric parity Eotvos experiments.
That is the only theoretically allowed (teleparallel gravitation), allowed measurable amplitude, prior observation non-contradictory EP violation that can be performed. Gravitation physics is an insular coward.
The Lamb shift of anti-hydrogen is an important measurement, as is the hyperfine transition 21 cm line known to 14 significant figures.
[1] E.G. Adelberger, J.H. Gundlach, B.R. Heckel, S. Hoedl and S. Schlamminger, “Torsion balance experiments: a low-energy frontier of particle physics” Prog. Part. Nucl. Phys. 62 102 (2009); B.R. Heckel, C.E. Cramer, T.S. Cook, E.G. Adelberger, S. Schlamminger, and U. Schmidt, “New CP-Violation and Preferred-Frame Tests with Polarized Electrons” Phys. Rev. Lett. 97 021603 (2006) [ariv:0808.2673].
[2] D.J. Champion, S.M. Ransom, P. Lazarus, F. Camilo, C. Bassa, V.M. Kaspi, et al., “An Eccentric Binary Millisecond Pulsar in the Galactic Plane” Science 320(5881) 1309 (2004) [arxiv:0805.2396].
[3] J.M. Lattimer and M. Prakash “Neutron star structure and the equation of state” Astrophysical J. 550(1) 426 (2001) [arxiv:astro-ph/0002232]; A. Akmal, V.R. Pandharipande, D.G. Ravenhall, “The equation of state for nucleon matter and neutron star structure” Phys. Rev. C 58(4) 1804 (1999) [ariv:nucl-th/9804027]; C.J. Pethick, A. Akmal, V.R. Pandharipande, D.G. Ravenhall, “Neutron Star Structure” [arxiv:astro-ph/9905177].
[4] D. Page, M. Prakash, J.M. Lattimer, and A.W. Steiner, “Rapid Cooling of the Neutron Star in Cassiopeia A Triggered by Neutron Superfluidity in Dense Matter” Phys. Rev. Lett. 106 081101 (2011) [arxiv:1011.6142].
[5] P. Demorest, T. Pennucci, S. Ransom, M. Roberts, and J. Hessels, “Shapiro delay measurement of a two solar mass neutron star” Nature 467 1081 (2010) [arxiv:1010.5788].
[6] M. Petitjean, “On the root mean square quantitative chirality and quantitative symmetry measures” J. Math. Phys. 40 4587 (1999).