RUSSIAN PROJECT

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32789, 14 December 1971, Page 17

RUSSIAN PROJECT

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) LONDON, Dec. 13. Russian scientists are planning to make anti-matter, the substance which should explode with a hundred or more times the power of an equivalent bomb if it meets the ordinary matter which forms our world.

The amount they propose to make however, will represent no danger to the worldjust enough to blow a hole in a piece of paper. Academician Hersch Budker, one of the world’s leading physicists, discloses the plan in the “New Scientist” Anti-matter, in the form of anti-protons the nuclei of anti-hydrogen has already appeared as individual particles in the giant particle accelerators, particularly the Russian accelerator at Serpukhov. Dr Budker and his colleagues at the other end of the Soviet Union, near Novosibirsk, are planning to make complete atoms of antihydrogen, with anti-electrons orbiting around the antinuclei.

In one new accelerator now being built, a beam of positrons, or anti-electrons, will be centred on a beam of 10,000 m anti-protons and the result is expected to be the formation of antiplasma in which complete anti-hydrogen atoms will be formed. If the experiment succeeds, scientists will be able to study the properties and spectrum of anti-matter, and if they differ from those of ordinary matter, then the laws or physics will have to be rewritten. Ciant pudding

A 14001 b Christmas pudding, said to be the largest in the world, will go on display in Melbourne on Wednesday before being served to 5500 needy people on Christmas Day, through the auspices of the Salvation Army. The Victorian Premier (Sir Henry Bolte) will formally “christen” the pudding with a huge bowl of fondant topping, and then a fork-lift truck will hoist it on to a display stand in a Melbourne hotel lobby.—Melbourne, Dec. 13.