Matter and Antimatter Respond the Same to Gravity

Jan 7, 2022 | Daily Space, Physics

IMAGE: View of the BASE experiment. CREDIT: CERN

As a final note, we’d like to let you know that in new experiments at CERN, researchers led by M.J. Norchert find that gravity affects protons and anti-protons the same way. Researchers accelerated the two particles the same way in CERN and studied the period of the system. This period of motion is based on the charge and mass of the particles and will only match if gravity affects them the same way.

And it did, to an accuracy of three parts in one hundred. This doesn’t prove they are absolutely identical, but within the error of the experiment, this appears to be the case, and that means physics works just as we keep saying it works. That is one small thing to take comfort in.

More Information

CERN press release

A 16-parts-per-trillion measurement of the antiproton-to-proton charge–mass ratio,” M. J. Borchert et al., 2022 January 5, Nature

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