Greg EganMar 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
Show threadGreg Egan5d ago

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.

Show threadY⃒̸̷̝̜̙ͥͥͥngmar5d ago
@gregeganSF Which hazard diamond is antimatter?
Show threadMark Eichin
@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...)
Mar 25 at 9:32amWeb
Show threadY⃒̸̷̝̜̙ͥͥͥngmar5d ago

@eichin @gregeganSF UN 3538 apparently!

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

Probably refers to the cooling system though :)