Science Cafe: Antimatter – Science and Applications

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The Swansea Science Cafe offers opportunities for anyone to find out more about new, exciting and topical areas of science in an informal and entertaining way.

Title: Antimatter – Science and Applications

Speaker: Professor Mike Charlton of Swansea University

Date: Wednesday 26th November 2014 

Time: 7:30pm

Time: Venue: The Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea

Admission: Free, all welcome

Antimatter was discovered in the 1930’s and since then positrons have found numerous applications in atomic and materials science, engineering and medicine. More recently, Professor Charlton along with his fellow physicists working at CERN, have learnt how to create and capture atoms of antihydrogen.

A few of these anti-atoms have been held for periods longer than 15 minutes and the first experiments have been performed to measure their properties. The talk will cover the history of antimatter, why the positron is so useful and the current anti-atom experiments and the motivation for undertaking them. The latter will involve one of nature’s great conundrums: the absence of bulk antimatter in the current epoch of the Universe.

Contact details: http://swansea.ac.uk/science/swanseasciencecafe/

About Science Cafe Wales

Each month, a leading expert in their field will give a brief introductory talk followed by a friendly informal chat. You can sit back, relax with a drink and listen or get involved in the discussion and debate. The Science Café organisers are committed to promoting public engagement with science and to making science accountable.

Science Café Wales are held in casual settings in Cardiff, Swansea and Bangor. They are informal and accessible and entrance is entirely free. They usually start with a short talk from the speaker, usually a scientist or writer, followed by a quick break and then an hour or so of discussion afterwards.

Previous topics have included dark matter, the common cold, Dr Who, the Big Bang and alternative therapies.

The first Cafes Scientifiques in the UK were held in Leeds in 1998. From there cafés gradually spread across the country.

Currently, some 40 or so cafés meet regularly to hear scientists or writers on science talk about their work and discuss it with diverse audiences.