back to article 'Beauty with antimatter bottom' created out of pure energy

Physicists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the most powerful particle punisher ever assembled by the human race, say that experiments there are going well. In particular, they have managed to create out of pure energy a thing which they describe as a "beauty" featuring an antimatter bottom. LHCb Beauty particle collision …

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  1. Huntsman
    Heart

    Lewis Page

    always raises a smile with his articles. By articles I mean stories, not his testicles.

    1. TeeCee Gold badge
      Coat

      Au contraire.

      I think that the Lewis' bollocks is just as funny as his serious stuff.

  2. Ken Hagan Gold badge
    Boffin

    Beauty or Bottom, pick one.

    Yes, the b quark is occasionally referred to as beauty. It is one of a duo with the t quark and depending on who you ask they are "truth and beauty" or "top and bottom". But you have to pick one set of names and stick with them.

    Whoever named this beauty particle clearly belongs to the truth and beauty crowd, so I suggest there is no bottom on display here. Sorry to disappoint.

    1. GrahamT
      Boffin

      John Keats explains this

      'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

      Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

    2. lglethal Silver badge
      Joke

      So what your saying is...

      ... that this should be an anti-beauty not an anti-bottom? Then may i be the first to propse we rename the anti-bottom an "Essex Lass"?

      "Dave i think we've created a beauty"

      "Wait Tom, nope its not a beauty, its the opposite of a beauty!"

      "No! Not an Essex Lass!"

      "Yep, 'fraid so. Still im sure she'll put out a lot.... (of energy)"

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Strewth

        I was thinking more along the line of 'you beauty' and 'ripper' along with the 'mate' particle.

    3. Gianni Straniero
      Coat

      No bottom on display

      Nor an antibottom, mores the pity. I understand (in the loosest possible sense of the term) that the antimatter partner to a bottom quark is a "bottom anti-quark".

      I wonder if they're beginning to regret their nomenclature.

      Boffin [indicating screen]: This is a top quark.

      Joe Public: And that's the opposite of a bottom quark?

      Boffin: No. That would be a top antiquark.

      Joe: That's strange

      Boffin [pinching bridge of nose]: No, it isn't. [Indicates other part of screen]. That's strange.

      Joe: Why, what is it?

      Boffin: Strange, dammit! It's a strange quark, you idiot!

      Joe: Charmed, I'm sure.

      Boffin: [head explodes]

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Boffin: [head explodes]

        He should have worn the reinforced tight-fitting headgear instead of the Susquehanna hat!

  3. TeeCee Gold badge
    Coat

    A beauty with an antimatter bottom?

    We all know what happens when anti-matter meets matter, don't we?

    Dis-arsed-her.

  4. Gordon is not a Moron

    "excited charmonium" ?

    sounds like it belongs in an episode of Pokemon

    1. IR

      I suspect

      it was discovered by Bo Selecta's Michael Jackson. He he! Charmone muthafuckers!

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Don't mean a thing if...

    Doesn't mean a thing if they can't get the hostess's bra to jump two feet to the left. Should have used PG Tips. (DNA: big respect!)

    1. Peter Gathercole Silver badge
      Happy

      ...and made sure it was really hot

      I'm off to find a teacake, and some perspective.

      1. Glyn Smith
        Coat

        Paint it pink

        Whatever it is, it's Somebody Else's Problem

      2. teacake

        @Peter Gathercole

        "I'm off to find a teacake, and some perspective."

        You rang?

    2. Captain Save-a-ho
      Coat

      Actually, that's not true...

      These are the group of scientists who weren't invited to those sorts of parties (and who thought it's a debasement of science).

      I think I'm a sofa...

  6. Elmer Phud

    Disclaimer

    "STANDARD REG SCIENCE QUALITY WARNING: The chance that we are following this correctly is roughly equivalent to that of a man with no arms throwing a handful of jelly through a falling doughnut at fifty yards without touching the sides."

    Doesn't matter - it's Friday and it says 'bottom', that's all we need to know.

    1. soandso
      Happy

      hold on

      didn't you mean to say "it antimatters"? God I am on fire today.

  7. Tom 64
    Thumb Up

    excellent

    Keep 'em coming Lewis

  8. Carlos Cruz
    Paris Hilton

    Ahhh, the charm of an anti-bottom...

    Paris, because her bottom is a beauty.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Pedant alert

    "It seems that the B+ beauty was produced by the head-on collision of two protons travelling at light speed"

    Not so - to get a proton to light speed would require infinite energy to do so since it has non-zero rest mass...

    And Malaysian cars were never that quick...

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    Nice one Lewis!

    Lewis is on song, the BOFH's back in Mission Control, it's Friday - all's well with the world.

  11. Winkypop Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    More articles 'bout particles !!

    Yay!

    Ain't applied science wonderful.

    Who needs a mythical deity?

  12. Trollslayer
    Thumb Up

    Disappooointing accurate

    Tsk, not so tabloid.

    Very nicely done guys.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    Anti-Matter Bottom?

    Been there, done that. All it took was a dodgy curry...

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    You haven't got a clue

    But top reporting anyway!

  15. TeeCee Gold badge

    Ah, the symmetry!

    I find it interesting that:

    Proving E=MC² involves drawing lots of esoteric symbols, then some complicated engineering and results in a big hole in the ground.

    Proving M=E/C² involves digging a big hole in the ground, then some complicated engineering and results in the display of a lot of esoteric symbols.

    1. Robert Fletcher
      Thumb Up

      @TeeCee

      Excellent! You win my "profundity award" of the week :-)

  16. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

    You wouldn't mind running through that again would you?

    Preferably in 'Captain Dummy Talk' [tm].

    I'd really like to understand some of this stuff, but I think I'm pretty much reduced to, "ooooh look at the pretty lights", with maybe a side order of, "wubble".

    Still, keep up the good work. While I continue to read the articles, I can continue to pretend to myself that I'm a scientifically literate renaissance man, rather than a knuckle-dragging, biomass harvest unit to feed our inevitable machine overlords.

  17. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
    Boffin

    Pedant alert

    The REST mass of the protons was way smaller than the B+ (disappointing grade to some ;-) )

    The sum of the masses they had in the lab frame of reference was as high or higher than the B+.

    Great fun nonetheless

  18. scottboy
    Thumb Up

    as any fule kno

    Haven't seen that for years and now I can't find my copy chiz chiz.

  19. Stone Fox
    Coat

    something called "CP-violation"

    sounds like something that'd get you the ban hammer on /b/.

  20. Bill Neal
    WTF?

    CP violation?

    People goto prison for that sort of thing.

  21. Charlie Clark Silver badge
    Pint

    Where's it all gone?

    I mean we're missing about half of the universe. Did someone leave it on the Tube on the way home? It's typical of the government. Well, I'm not going to pay any taxes for any of this strange beauty!

    Great article Lewis. When's the book out?

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    You had my hopes up!

    "'Beauty with antimatter bottom' created out of pure energy"

    I had my fingers crossed that I'd get to give her a "big bang"

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    Some Quick Maths...

    Mass of a proton: 1.672621x10^-27 kg

    Mass of B+: 1.672621x10^-26 kg (fives times heavier than two protons, per article)

    Difference: 1.3380968x10-26 kg

    e = 1.20262x10-9 joules (I think)

  24. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Wait a minute...

    If someone has no arms how in the blue fuck are they going to throw a handful of anything?

    Unless of course their hands are attached at the shoulders...

    Hmmm

    1. Naughtyhorse
      Happy

      ALTERNATIVE HYPOTHESYS

      Could be a friend of stephen right's friend with wooden legs but real feet... no arms, but real hands.

      you may well mock, but it's not the most bonkers idea on *this* page

  25. bob, mon!
    Boffin

    jelly, donuts, GeV, and beauty

    Funny you should mention jelly donuts --- as we should all remember from physics (or maybe cooking) class, 1 jelly donut gives about 1 megaJoule, thus about 6e15 GeV.

    So you'd need around 1.2 trillion anti-bottomed beauties to get that jelly into that donut.

    My conclusion: the LHC is not as effective as a stationary bicycle for weight loss.

  26. Chemist
    Joke

    Re : STANDARD REG SCIENCE QUALITY WARNING:

    I think a more apt comparison is " as much chance as a politician in a truth telling contest"

    Douglas Adams - Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

    (I don't have the Book to hand but it's something like that)

  27. JakSuede
    Alert

    Off With Their Hats!

    I had one of those head-shrinking adornments, but it exploded on reading this article...

  28. A Non e-mouse Silver badge
    Happy

    Well Done Everyone

    I'm not sure what's better: The article or all the comments.

    Well done everyone. You all deserve a beer (or three..)

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    A top-bottom conundrum

    You think the nomenclature of quarks is in a mess? Try something as prosaic as one's sexual proclivities if you want to witness confusion on the run.

    Now as most readers of El Reg know, some gentlemen prefer the company of other gentlemen when engaging in the relief of internal glandular pressures, and deploy a range of activities (generally known as "play", except to fundies, who call it all a "deplorable lifestyle") to accomplish depressurization of certain internal glands. Many of these activities clearly have one partner taking the leading role, and the assignment of players to the epistemological categories "top" and "bottom" is easy. But some types of play don't lend themselves to such easy description because they embody a conflict between the psychological reality and the physical reality.

    All of which adds up to a plea for gay men not to use "top" and "bottom" when describing their unspeakable, deplorable, unnatural lusts, but rather to use phrases such as "I prefer to be Xed" and "I prefer to X", for various values of X.

    Postscript: I'm wondering if it's possible to build a Large Gay Man Collider (LGMC) and fire highly energetic dudes in pink feather boas and fluffy sweaters at highly butch dudes kitted out in High Leather. What would be the lifetime of the resultant particles? Would flashing disco lights be an essential part of the apparatus???

  30. blackworx
    Coffee/keyboard

    You had me at detecto cavern

    And when "this means that pretty much the whole of physics is wrong, which seems to be pretty much normal for physics" came along I actually had to wipe a tear from my eye.

    Keep 'em coming!

  31. Astarte

    Around the Circle

    Wonderful stuff and good reporting. We Need More.

    As an aside, reading the article, having just returned from Slims Throat Emporium, the mention of muons and anti-muons seemed to settle in my brain. Could this be a covert reference to cats? Mewing and anti-mewing or simply mews and anti-mews. Schoedinger knew all about cats and by association mewing or muon(ing). The chaps at LHC might need to stand back from their discoveries just to apply Schroedinger's and Heisenberg's theories. I'm sure they do, but do they really/

    I'd suggest that bottoms and tops exist simultaneously until one attempts to investigate one of them.

    Ok, Back to the pub.

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    LHC my ass.(bottom?)

    That top pic. looks like a screen capture of Win. Media Player visualizations window.

  33. Sir Runcible Spoon
    Heart

    Sir

    "The chance that we are following this correctly is roughly equivalent to that of a man with no arms throwing a handful of jelly through a falling doughnut at fifty yards without touching the sides"

    Piece of piss that, so I reckon you must've done well. You should do guest spots in The New Scientist, it would liven up the tone a bit :)

    I fucking love the Reg, don't know what I'd do without it. Along with my webmail and a motorbike forum, it's one of the only three sites I visit *all* the time, and you only have to read this article to see why.

    Please can I have my free t-shirt now :)

    </smarm>

  34. Black Betty
    Joke

    I'm getting a hadron just thinking about this.

    And a bottom like that should definitely be lepton.

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    like sir mix a lot...

    i am very much *NOT* an anti-bottom

  36. VeganVegan
    IT Angle

    Let's get to the bottom of this...

    Does the anti-callipygian emanations have anything to do with the cleft stick and sandy bumwad?

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    what did the beauty say?

    does my bottom look big in this

  38. SilverWave
    Happy

    Top Man Lewis

    ah...

    Anyway Liked it a lot :-)

    Cheers.

  39. Dave Wallace

    Telegraph Headline

    Large Hardon Collider cracks off a Beauty.

  40. w3a2z

    w3a2z

    Antimatter is a misnomer.

    "Antimatter" evolves in anti-time.

    It pursues... anti-entropy.

    There is a complementary, symmetric component of the Universe, implicit in the non-local quantum state change, called the Big Bang.

    The Universe is The Di-verse.

  41. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Cor luvaduk?

    Is this the solar system?

    Is this planet Earth?

    Has there been a slight perturbation is space-time continuum (wormholes accepted)?

    I need a coffee?

  42. Neil Cooper

    I did it!

    I just created a fugly!

  43. Thomas 4
    Boffin

    Register Science.....

    ....we do what we must because we can.

    You know, if El Reg took its science seriously instead of looking for SUBATOMIC DEVESTATION and QUASI DIMENSIONAL RIFTS TO LIZARD SPACE, it wouldn't even be a tenth as awesome as it currently is.

  44. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    So philosophical

    I wonder what the church punters have to say about it? I'm just that tipsy that I'm not afraid to ask.

    Anonymous because separation of church and state applies only to the government - or that part of it that still honors the Constitution at more than face value, at least. Tee-hee?....

  45. Svein Skogen
    Coat

    Mix up things properly!

    If you're going to mix up top/bottom and truth/beauty in the antimatter setting, wouldn't this be an anti-top (topless) beauty?

    //Svein

    1. asiaseen

      Surely,

      an anti-bottom ought to be the same thing as a front bottom?

  46. Roger Greenwood
    Pint

    Without doubt

    this gets my vote for article of the year (so far).

  47. jon 77

    hmpfh

    "the sooner the missing 96 per cent of the universe can be tracked down - perhaps hidden in another dimension or something."

    well, to keep it simple, we CANNOT see all the universe.. Until we make a craft to get out there, that is.. *sight* is limited by the speed of light, so the farther away something is, the older it is...

    A bit like shining a very weak torch into a LARGE darkened warehouse, you will not be able to see the far wall, until you get much closer...

    1. Adam 10

      Not that simple

      I like the torch/warehouse analogy, but it's not just a matter of being able to see what's very far away. What the scientists allude to here is that we can't see everything that's right here, around us.

      There is some stuff that we know is around us because it interacts very sparingly with the stuff we can see (neutrinos through a tank of cleaning fluid, for instance). However, there is a lot of stuff out there that we THINK exists, but we're not sure because we haven't yet figured out how it would interract (if at all) with the stuff that we can see.

  48. Robert E A Harvey
    Coat

    Random thought waves

    All of this makes me realise how clever the Victorians were, when every household had several anti-maccasars

    Mine's the one with the Rowland's stains on the collar.

  49. sgb
    Megaphone

    Rant time

    Don't use comments like 'pretty much the whole of physics is wrong' - it just panders to the nut jobs that don't know what the word 'theory' means.

    To take a stupid example, if all of our understanding of physics was wrong, would wouldn't have been able to build the collider in the first place. Or a car, a radio, a lightbulb or a hammer. Or boil water for a cup of tea. At the very least, most people understand enough physics to know that if you heat up water enough it will boil, and they'd be right. Admittedly most people can't do the maths.

    Mostly, the Standard Model is incomplete and will be replaced with one that explains everything at least as well as the current theory and hopefully more bits besides.

    1. Adam 10

      +1

      I agree. The problem with being an honest physicist and saying "This is a theory" is that many hear this statement as "Even I have doubt in this, and I'm the scientist who came up with it!!!" before using it as an argument in the next anti-evolution conversation they have.

      Namely "Aha, even SCIENTISTS doubt evolution really happened!".

  50. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    therefore...

    if Beauty = Truth

    and

    Beauty has mass,

    and

    weight = mass x gravity

    then what keeps our politicians from floating off into space?

    1. Chemist
      Joke

      Re : therefore...

      Must be our BAD LUCK

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