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The Antimatter Factory

© Luca Locatelli

The Upside Down world house


The Upside Down is a physical space that exists as almost an exact replica of the real and in the bustling high tech quarters of CERN in Switzerland, the Antimatter Factory has proven that.

Here a group of top scientists are constantly at work with the hope to answer some of the most fundamental questions regarding the formation of our universe — finding out what regulates and what happened to antimatter.

In 1928, British physicist Paul Dirac wrote down an equation that theorised for every particle there exists a corresponding antiparticle, exactly matching the particle but with opposite charge, opening the possibility of entire galaxies and universes made of antimatter.

But when matter and antimatter come into contact, they annihilate – disappearing in a flash of energy. The Big Bang should have created equal amounts of matter and antimatter. So why is there far more matter than antimatter in the universe?



Experiments Alpha, Atrap, Asacusa, Aegis and Base aim to find out how antimatter behaves and reacts to other particles, temperature and gravity, and in 2011 succeeded in trapping an antimatter atom for over 16 minutes.

The longer these experiments can trap anti atoms, the more accurately they can measure it, and physicist will be closer to demystifying antimatter and help find answers to the creation of our universe.


At the Antimatter Factory it’s not unusual to see artists, musicians and movie directors strolling around to get inspired on the upside down world, such as Metallica and the block buster series Stranger Things were inspired by this site.


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