Mastodawn

Greg Egan Mar 14

Antimatter Trucker is finally a job title! But don’t worry, this isn’t going to be “The Wages of Fear, 2026”:

“The device on Cern’s truck will carry about 1,000 antimatter particles, weighing about a billionth of a trillionth of a gram. Should the containment fail, and the antimatter make contact with normal matter, the resulting pulse of energy would be so feeble, the load doesn’t even warrant a radioactive label.”

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/mar/14/please-drive-carefully-scientists-plan-to-transport-volatile-antimatter-for-first-time

Please drive carefully: scientists plan to transport volatile antimatter for first time

Cern researchers are testing traps capable of moving antimatter, which explodes into energy as soon as it comes into contact with regular matter

The Guardian

They actually did it!

“On 24 March, a team at CERN transported 92 antiprotons in a specially designed bottle that traps the particles using magnetic fields. The bottle travelled on the back of a truck, for a 30-minute journey ... ”

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00950-w

Antimatter has been transported for the first time ever — in the back of CERN's truck

Physicists have succeeded for the first time in transporting the most expensive and most volatile substance on Earth — antimatter.

Greg Egan 4d ago

If you’re wondering how they knew they had 92 antiprotons in their trap, and didn’t lose any along the way, the answer is “image current detection”.

When a charged particle moves past a metal plate, its electric field induces a current in it, with no need for the particle to actual touch anything. That current was monitored to keep track of the contents of the trap.

“Monitoring the antiprotons in real-time: a standard non-destructive image current detection technique is used – this technique is routinely available in precision Penning-trap experiments – so the team gets a continuous signal showing the amount of particles in the trap.”

https://home.cern/science/cern/antimatter-transportation-media-kit

Antimatter Transportation Media Kit

CERN

@gregeganSF CERN put out a video on the trap. It calms down after the ACTION MOVIE INTRO that every org that hardly ever makes video does https://youtu.be/KdPm6t-jNsw

What's inside the BASE-STEP antiproton trap?

YouTube

David ‮ yensiR 1d ago

@ChateauErin @gregeganSF Wow! Though presenting from the ST TNG holodeck does raise some questions

⁂ Fish Id Wardrobe 1d ago

@ChateauErin @gregeganSF … presumably antimatter? or else it's badly named

matthewfarrer 4d ago

@gregeganSF We were one traffic accident away from a supervillain origin story…

@gregeganSF there is an interesting essay to be written about being sure that there are 92 protons in there. How come its exactly 92? How did they count them?

@prof_T @gregeganSF easy, they used antimatter tweezers, duh

@fmobus @gregeganSF only if they had antimatter fingers and hands :)

@prof_T @gregeganSF safety first, must wear antimatter gloves

Killa Koala 4d ago

@gregeganSF They better be careful or Trump will send in Seal Team 6 to to steal the bottle so he can make make a SUPER OBLITERATOR!

Y⃒̸̷̝̜̙ͥͥͥngmar 4d ago

@gregeganSF Which hazard diamond is antimatter?

Mark Eichin 4d ago

@yngmar @gregeganSF in this case (at least if it were on US roads), I'd guess it needs the unofficial CRYO marker that goes in the white quadrant for the superconducting magnet system (which is of course a vastly greater hazard than the antimatter at these quantities.) (Which is probably still safer than the truck's own fuel, which doesn't need an NFPA tag...)

Y⃒̸̷̝̜̙ͥͥͥngmar 4d ago

@eichin @gregeganSF UN 3538 apparently!

"ARTICLES CONTAINING NON-FLAMMABLE, NON TOXIC GAS, N.O.S."

Probably refers to the cooling system though :)

Juan Nunez-Iglesias 3d ago

@gregeganSF @lana not far off from the Tenet highway scene now …

https://youtu.be/EoarG7_pSNw

But seriously, incredible sci-fi stuff.

The Reverse Car Chase (TENET) ● 4K HDR IMAX ● DTS HD 5.1

YouTube