this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2025
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Today I Learned

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A list of the seven most expensive substances on Earth.

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[–] LostXOR@fedia.io 182 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Given the technology to create and store antimatter in quantities exceeding a handful of atoms doesn't exist, it's a bit ridiculous to extrapolate a price per gram for it.

[–] rtxn@lemmy.world 109 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Atoms are made-up by Big Small so they can sell you more less!

[–] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

Ooh! You card read good!

[–] HowAbt2morrow 45 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Shouldn’t it cost -$60 trillion?

[–] LostXOR@fedia.io 22 points 1 week ago

New infinite money glitch unlocked!

[–] Infynis@midwest.social 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Does it even have mass like that?

Edit: should have just kept scrolling https://sopuli.xyz/comment/15894538

[–] noxypaws@pawb.social 5 points 1 week ago

a handful of atoms would be a lot of atoms!

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[–] i_am_not_a_robot@feddit.uk 100 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Nearly as expensive as printer ink.

[–] CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world 49 points 1 week ago (2 children)

"Your printer has detected 3rd party antimatter. Please only refill with Genuine HP(tm) AntiMatter cartridges. Authorities have been notified and are enroute to your residence."

[–] Ediacarium@feddit.org 31 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Starts printing Anti-Authorities

[–] MeatPilot@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago

Anti-Authorities save lives instead of take them.

Stop posting my wish fulfillment, it's distracting. 😂

[–] vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 1 week ago

nah, they'll just let you print antimatter ink on matter paper, and then claim that the explosion was your fault for counterfeiting

[–] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 58 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That’s not even buying it; you’re renting it by the nanosecond.

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 27 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's a subscription model for the artificial stuff. The natural version is dirt cheap. It's always the middle man with these modern services, I tell you.

[–] karmiclychee@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] tomenzgg@midwest.social 48 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Why do people post things like this? And who cares? It doesn't matter; it antimatters.

[–] stembolts@programming.dev 15 points 1 week ago

This is just an irresponsible post.

Be careful putting matter and antimatter so close in a sentence.

You'll kill us all.

[–] jlh@lemmy.jlh.name 27 points 1 week ago (7 children)
[–] rockSlayer@lemmy.blahaj.zone 31 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The reason why it's called antimatter is because the polarity of the nucleus and electrons are reversed. There are also antineutrons that have a neutral charge. It all still has mass, but will obliterate upon contact with regular matter

[–] Danitos@reddthat.com 12 points 1 week ago

There are also anti neutrons that have a neutral charge

Expanding onto this, it raises the question: how is a neutron different to an anti-neutron?

A neutron can be though of a particle composed of 2 down and 1 up quarks and lot of gluon's that keep everything together. The gluon is its own antiparticle, so the antineutron has 2 anti-down quarks, 1 anti-up quarks and gluons. This way it becomes a different particle despite also being of neutral charge.

[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 5 points 1 week ago

yes, its the same as normal, its just the "Spin of the particles that are opposite", if you get down deeper, the quarks are opposite.

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[–] spicystraw@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago (7 children)

1 gram of antimatter stored? Forget the explosion—imagine the insurance premium on that thing.

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[–] dogslayeggs@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago

Just wait until we start having it manufactured in a cheap labor market. The prices will plummet! It'll likely be mostly fake, but that's the price we pay for cheap antimatter.

[–] yarr@feddit.nl 16 points 1 week ago

I thought it was HP inkjet printer cartridges? I think that's around $60 trillion per gram, isn't it?

[–] lurch@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

That's so stupid: You can make antimatter at home for tree fiddy. Just buy a bunch of bananas and wait for the potassium to decay into positrons. EZ

[–] FlihpFlorp@lemm.ee 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Tree fid- WAIT THIS AINT NO SCIENCE MAN ITS THE GOD DAMN LOCH NESS MONSTER

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[–] VivianRixia@piefed.social 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I didn't even know we could get a gram of anti-matter, cause don't they make it proton by proton, and they also don't exist for that long?

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[–] cholesterol@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago

Ridiculous! Tariffs on antimatter now!

[–] perestroika@lemm.ee 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

With a gram of antimatter, you can probably blow a city-sized crater into Earth, so yes, 60 trillion seems like a fair price.

Edit: oh, it's only 21 kilotons. The stuff is overpriced. :)

[–] LordWiggle@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I could snort 5 grams in one weekend, so yeah, overpriced.

[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 5 points 6 days ago

My Lord, the commoners mustn’t see you so

[–] Nomecks@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (3 children)

I thought element 118 was like $60 quadrillion a gram because they only manged to make like 3 atoms of it.

Edit:

  • 2.05x10^21 atoms in a gram of element 118
  • 5 atoms synthesized so far

Assuming they somehow managed to spend only $1 making every atom, that's $2,050,000,000,000,000,000,000 per gram.

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[–] Grass@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 week ago

no you wont trick me. its printer ink...

[–] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I bet it gets you way high

From the velocity imparted by the explosion, yes

[–] kandoh@reddthat.com 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

If u r buying dm me, i got a connect

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[–] WrenFeathers@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

I should think about selling some of mine.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Can we even contain it? Afaik, it's destroyed basically the instant it is created because there's regular matter everywhere.

[–] Gustephan@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Fun fact; the standard model actually allows for spontaneous particle-antiparticle pair generation, so long as the pair mutually annihilate within some hbar defined time limit and conservation laws aren't broken at a macro scale. This is the mechanism behind hawking radiation too; some of the energy given off by black holes is caused by spontaneous pair generation that happens such that one of the pair is created beyond the event horizon and the other member is created before the event horizon, causing one to be trapped and the other to be jettisoned into space.

I know that doesn't really relate to your comment about containing antimatter but I counter with the following: I'm profoundly autistic and the standard model has been a special interest of mine before. I couldn't resist the chance to infodump a bit

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[–] Aganim@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It can be contained using magnetic fields, that has been possible since 2010: https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2010/11/17/antimatter-atoms/

Scientists are even preparing to transport it in the near future: https://glassalmanac.com/why-scientists-are-transporting-antimatter-in-a-van-uncover-the-reasons/

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

That's the opening scene of an X-Files episode for sure.

[–] peoplebeproblems@midwest.social 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Ah, that's why we haven't used it in weapons yet.

I figured because any amount of usedul antimatter annihilateing causes gamma rays that cook the planet, but $60T makes it a bit more prohibitive

[–] Quilotoa@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 week ago

Yeah, I usually only buy a couple of grams at a time.

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