This New Element is Lighter than Hydrogen. What?!?!

[@SciShow]

Visit brilliant.org/scishow/ to get started learning STEM for free, and the first 200 people will get 20% off their annual premium subscription.

[@hunterball7938]

I'm honestly interested in how muonium would interact with other objects. It's inherently unstable, so I'd wonder what would happen before (and perhaps during) the inevitable decay. An electron (and positron from the antimuon) would fling off free to bump into any atom that's there. Muonium may actually be worth more research. It may hold some understanding into basic molecular forces/interactions

[@garysteven1343]

It's weird to like your own comment 😅

[@alto7183]

Muy interesante, prácticamente podría estar nuevos descubrimientos a la vuelta de la esquina con esto, intuido naves voladoras que usen anti gravedad.

[@newlineschannel]

lol

[@TWJfdsa]

is MU a stable atom?

[@seanmurphy3430]

I just want to take a second to appreciate the phrase, "fairly easy to create in particle accelerators."

[@maxwilson7001]

We’re living in the future, it just doesn’t feel like it

[@greenben3744]

Mostly because of how dystopian everything is

[@getbendt2970]

You don’t have one?

[@haggis53]

okay this made me cackle ngl

[@vincentfreddoyle7555]

Yeah mine takes like 30 minutes to turn on, and when I try to make muonium, it almost breaks. Like I can afford to repair it 🙄💅

[@daBuzzY90]

Hey! I’m actually going to be doing my master’s thesis in a particle physics group that aims to do exactly that, measure the (anti-)gravitational constant using muonium. Funny to see this pop up here.

[@EvilSandwich]

Actually in that case, I had a few questions that they kind of glazed over this video and I was wondering if you could provide me any insight with it? Now bear in mind that I am one hundred percent a layman so you're probably going to dumb it down a lot lol

[@EvilSandwich]

What are the big questions I had is do muons have the same issue that electrons have for their position isn't fixed in space but rather operates on probability?

[@davidhand9721]

May I ask _why_ an antiparticle should have a reverse effect of gravity? Nobody's arguing that they have negative mass, right?

[@jhonbus]

@@EvilSandwich Everything is like that.

[@billfoster5257]

I'm also taking a class. In physical therapy...

[@valornthered]

Given that muonium contains no protons and atomic numbers denote the number of protons in an atom of a given element: Muonium is officially Element Zero (as long as you consider it to be its own element).

[@badhbhchadh]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutronium#In_the_periodic_table

[@mikezappulla4092]

So is positronium also element zero since they are analogous? They are radioisotopes of hydrogen and it would be a stretch to call them quasi-atoms. Back in 1960 when it was first discovered they thought it was an atom but our understanding of particle physics has significantly increased. What this video is saying is true only if it also 1960. Also, muonium and positronium have never been observed and are theoretical. To end in -ium requires the positive particle to be bound with a negative particle and the positive particle would have -ium added to the end of the name. If this is not the cause it is ends in -on. If they do exist, they would not be placed in the standard model so hydrogen would remain the lightest atom.

[@yallareblind4948]

Wouldn’t it be element -1? Since its, antimatter?

[@notalexzander2]

@@yallareblind4948no.

[@chrismanuel9768]

@@yallareblind4948 It doesn't contain one antiproton though

[@idmckenzie76]

Very cool video. I received my PhD in muonium chemistry and have been working in the field since 1998, so it's very cool to see a video on this subject. Mu behaves chemically like atomic hydrogen and we study it for two different reasons. One is that we are interested in seeing what effect the light mass of Mu has on reactions (isotope effect). This can tell us a lot about how a reaction proceeds. We also study Mu under conditions where it is difficult to study H, such as in supercritical water. One point to note, at 3:53 the slowing down of muons through a degrader is described. Usually we don't do that. Instead we frequently use surface muons, which are produced from the decay of pions at the surface of the muon production target. These have an energy of about 4 MeV and stop in about 1 mm of water. A thin degrader of condensed noble gases is used to produced low energy muons at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland. There they can produce a muon beam with energies of a few keV and can stop in tens to hundreds of nanometers. The muon beams are 100% spin-polarized and we use a form of magnetic resonance known as μSR to study the various chemical states involving muons as probes of materials. μSR is about 10 orders of magnitude more sensitive than conventional magnetic resonance techniques.

[@death_parade]

Thank you for this treasure trove of information. I have high respect for people in high value professions explaining to us lay people the concepts they know.

[@EEEEEEEE]

E‎ ‎

[@lifeasagamerswife1961]

So Muonium has existed since the 60s? Why does this video call it new, then? Is it just suddenly easier to synthesize in 2023?

[@Burbie]

I'm proud of myself bcz i understood everything on this comment!!

[@dieselexhausted]

@@Burbie I'm actually proud of you, too! I got.... some of it. I just enjoy reading things I only understand part of a) to remind myself just how smart humans can get and b) to challenge myself to understand more, a little bit at a time.

[@estivalbloom]

3:10 if you *do* consider muonium to be a quirky kind of hydrogen, would that mean protium, deuterium, and tritium are quarky kinds of hydrogen?

[@lordgarion514]

No, because like all normal atoms, those other forms of hydrogen have protons. It's having protons that matter to our definition of an atom, not what the protons are made of.

[@alanshteyman1071]

@@lordgarion514 did you miss the pun?

[@tf_d]

@@lordgarion514 It was a pun 😭😭😭

[@lordgarion514]

@@alanshteyman1071 Nope. Didn't miss anything. You apparently don't spend much time talking to scientifically illiterate people. It's damn near a certainty that I'm gonna run into someone stupid enough to think you were serious...... Sorry dude, but we have to do things based on the stupidest people out there.

[@mr.boomguy]

@@alanshteyman1071 I did. And I'm usually good with puns

[@NeilRieck]

Leptons come in three flavors (ordered by mass): electron, mu and tau. So if an electron can be captured by an anti-muon then I suppose it is possible that an anti-tau can do the same. So, has anyone ever discovered the element Tauium ???

[@bozhidarmihaylov]

Idk, but there’s a probability to discover MuThaunium in the process or anything in between 😅

[@SariRomero-wo6sz]

​@@bozhidarmihaylov Leptonium of Leptium is a better name

[@MrMats0n]

I would suppose an anti-tau particle to have a way lesser positive charge compared to a proton, so keeping an electron in orbit around one might not be feasible

[@joshualucas1821]

The problem with producing tauonium is that the tauon's half-life is one ten-millionth of the muon's already extremely short lifespan of 2 microseconds.

[@shiedakayn3430]

Hawk Tau 🗣️🗣️

[@heavenchainslayingmoon]

2 millionths of a second is enough for muons to have a relationship with other particles, finish school, find a job, have children and family, and retire as an accomplished particle and here I am almost thirty years old with less than half that.

[@booknamebasis]

I think one of my favorite things I have learned from physics and chemistry and biology is that the universe seems to work on a “close enough” principle rather than perfect exactness

[@danielhanlon8438]

Yeah. If it works dont break it. Partly why some animals can evolve certain attributes that dont really do much

[@Oscaragious]

That's my least favorite thing.

[@DrDeuteron]

if it were exact, all leptons and flavored baryons would be stable: no life. We need the weak integration to f-it-all-up so we can live as stable baryonic/electronic beings.

[@AlexanderThePilgrim]

Perhaps that ‘close enough’ attribute of the cosmos is what makes it perfect 👁️👄👁️

[@RockEuroStinger87]

There is no way it can be perfect and even if it is, we'll never be sure about that.

[@Chase_Danger]

We got a new element before gta 6

[@Hnagd]

We gotten so many new elements. They haven’t discovered all of them

[@new-cold-war]

Lololol

[@theloganator13]

I'm pretty sure positronium is an even lighter form of "hydrogen", just an anti-electron (positron) replacing the proton instead of a muon. It does have a shorter lifetime than muonium, about 0.1 millionths of a second (100 ns) but it was produced at CERN as a part of the AEgIS experiment which, funny enough, is also trying to determine if antimatter falls up. Source: I worked on this this experiment briefly.

[@MarcusAsaro]

Yes, you are correct!

[@jmgraves8]

Yeah, I thought he was going to talk about positronium when the vid started. Makes sense he went in this direction because of that decay time.

[@robinsparrow1618]

would it also be considered a lighter form of anti-hydrogen?

[@viorp5267]

there is a minimum lifetime required to classfy something as a new atom. Myuonium doesnt meet it either though, thus its not on the periodic table

[@theloganator13]

@@viorp5267 that minimum lifetime is 10 femtoseconds (10^-14 seconds) Muonion has a lifetime of 2.2 microseconds (10^-6), about 200 million times longer than the necessary lifetime. This is not why muonium is not on the periodic table. It's not on the table because the IUPAC defined chemical elements as having a nucleus with protons, and muonium has no protons.

[@meeponinthbit3466]

Well... This means in some non-zero degree of a plausibility, we could have a whole host of sci-fi unobtainium type materials out there yet undiscovered.

[@alien9279]

You should check out the video from PBS spacetime where they talk about the extended periodic table :D

[@sirsanti8408]

Well if there were conditions for muons to be stable for decent amounts of time, basically only in neutron stars maybe

[@caffiend81]

Depends if the strong force could glue muons together. I am not sure it can, but maybe? Muons are fundamental, i.e. not made of quarks, so I don't think the strong force would be present to overpower the electromagnetic force pushing muons apart.

[@Zekbo]

@@caffiend81 strong force only interacts with hadrons (muons are just heavier more unstable electrons and are also leptons) there may be some form of electron degeneration pressure stopping it from collapsing instead

[@slkjvlkfsvnlsdfhgdght5447]

yes, but they will most likely not be different from regular chemicals in any way that matters; well, except for being lighter perhaps

[@gabrielbarrera5509]

Spoiler : research demonstrated that anti matter is affected exactly the same by gravity.. Just so you guys know

[@thekirbycrafter7229]

I mean, still groundbreaking even if its the null hypothesis

[@anthonyaddo]

The writer (Tom Rivlin) and editors (Bill Mead, JD Voyek) of this episode are incredible. Their skill of being able to explain such complicated subjects in such a digestible manner is peerless and deeply appreciated. Thanks for making such deep science accessible to so many more people!

[@Imperial_Squid]

Hell yeah! Much love to the army of people behind the camera helping to explain this stuff too 💜💜

[@lux6485]

wait that was deep science?!?! i guess they explained it really nicely then

[@EEEEEEEE]

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[@tomrivlin7278]

Going to break my usual habit of avoiding comments to say thank you so much!!! Deeply grateful to my editors for taking my ramblings and forcing me to make them coherent (and then fixing them up even more after that haha)

[@sebastianortega1938]

It's like they thought "how would you talk about quantum mechanics with a chihuahua?" and so they write their scripts, and so we're heere learning a lot 😁

[@Stigvandr]

Does it form Mu²? That would be rad. What happens if you react Muonium molecules with oxygen? Anti-water? This is like a secret second page of the periodic table.

[@frogz]

unsure if this is a pokemon reference or just an oxide

[@daBuzzY90]

Yes, in theory it absolutely could. In practice not so much, as the problem of short lifetimes comes in to play. Also they’d be a bit different to normal water, as the muon is much less massive, plus some other mire technical things.

[@franck3279]

It would likely be just like with regular hydrogen since chemical properties mostly come from the electron outer layer, but it will vanish very fast since such a bound will have no stabilizing effect on the antimuon

[@dillonlamb2011]

I imagine it'll create light water - bit like how heavier isotopes of hydrogen create "heavy" water. It would probably be just as harmful aswell, due to the decay products

[@georgeh6856]

I was wondering if two muonium atoms could knock two hydrogen atoms off of a water molecule just long enough to capture the H2 gas. That could be easier than using electrolysis to separate H2O.

[@johnsteiner3417]

Weirdest "element" I read about was a nucleus that had four neutrons and no protons. It was made by bombarding regular helium with helium-8 [I know, it was new to me also]. The outcome was beryllium atoms and this short-lived element with zero protons. For those of you who are huge Mass Effect fans you can think of this as Element Zero.

[@josem.1811]

That would be nuclear pasta I think, it is what Neutron stars are made of

[@thatoneguy9582]

@@josem.1811 is “nuclear pasta” the scientific term for that

[@lotion5238]

​@@josem.1811I thought that nuclear pasta was made from the iron created during the hypergiant stage of stars in the final time before gravity wins and crushes the star?

[@josem.1811]

@@lotion5238 it is created that way, but basically it is just neutrons mashed together because the protons and electrons have been combined, creating neutrons

[@TheYuriiaraujo]

I watch science videos on KZbin as kind of a hobby and I swear this is the first time I've heard about muonium. Mind-blowing. Thanks!

[@mateusnicolinibezerra9757]

Exatamente o mesmo pra mim kkkkkkk

[@abaraigamer8814]

@@mateusnicolinibezerra9757 Quanto BR

[@GrinninPig]

Thanks for saying you just watch videos like everyone else, instead of claiming to be a physicist that turns down the Nobel prize every year like some kind of sciencey Bob Dillon

[@tonymurphy2624]

Speaking as a veteran sci-commer largely on bleeding edge physics, I have to say this is one of the best sci-comm presentations I've ever seen. I even learned some new things - rare in this particular arena - while all I came for was fishing for good new analogies. Sterling work.

[@SovietPupper]

I get the oddest feeling that TECHNICALLY there is a whole seperate periodic table of elements with Muonium instead of the standard. We need to expand the table NOW

[@duhboy9782]

nah i think we need to leave our table alone but make a QET Quantum Elemental Table i feel we are just at the doorstep of finding tons more adding to our current table would cause confusion i think.

[@strangeman5698]

But would the lifespan get lower and lower? So after a point we won't be able to observe it

[@Ixions]

Makes me wonder about the fine tuning argument... If certain parameters were tweaked carbon wouldn't be able to support life. This video seems to suggest that carbon maybe wouldn't but something else would take its place in a similar stable range where interesting chemistry can happen.

[@duhboy9782]

@@strangeman5698 i assume we could observe them in relatively strong gravity fields that slow the movement of time seemingly increasing the particles lifespan

[@strangeman5698]

@@duhboy9782 but to slow them significant you'd need to have something as massive and dense as a black hole and if you get that close to a black hole simply for an experiment you would need a very large amount of energy to escape. Also that's not how time dilation works. Because time would also slow down for you so you would see no difference

[@liquidesper1533]

This is an amazing opportunity to say you guys do amazing work

[@Sr.Estroncio38]

I agree, great channel

[@hunterball7938]

I'm honestly intrigued what muonium may do in large doses. I'd assume it'd be a gas but that's roughly it. The thing about quasi-atoms is that well they're quasi-atoms.

[@hunterball7938]

And considering the facts muons are sorta "magic particles" in that they can pull a disappearing act, Muonium could actually be a really important gas, noting the central particle is inherently destined to decay quicker than humanly perceptible. Imagine muonium, it would seem interesting to work with personally

[@daBuzzY90]

Whether it would be a gas or not depends on ol’ thermodynamics. But yes, it would be a gas. We’d never be able to make muonium in a density high enough to do much with the matter itself, though.

[@franck3279]

It would be a very strange gas that instantly turns into pure electricity and radiation

[@sdfkjgh]

@@franck3279: Sounds liek you could get _really_ freakin' high from huffing it!

[@edomeindertsma6669]

Muonium forms compounds in basically the same way as hydrogen, but the rate at which it does so is different due to its different mass. Muonium would be a gas, but as soon as it starts decaying it might become a bit like a plasma.

[@someone4650]

This is insane, I wonder if there are other possible types of weird antimatter elements, like a positron and an electron orbiting each other

[@Kamikater0815]

Yes, it’s called positronium. I’m surprised it wasn’t mentioned, as it’s even lighter than Mu.

[@someone4650]

@@Kamikater0815 IT’S REAL??? Call me a theoretical physicist the way I predict particles and then search for evidence of their existence

[@gorkskoal9315]

Yes! theoretically, anyway. Their's potentially some trippy af phenomenons: 4 or even 5demensional structures or regions of space that formed at the moment the universe formed, White Holes where particles do things that'd make even Einstein babble in coherently. In theory anyway objects and attoms that a white hole create wouldn't (technically) exist in our--uh time line- because they would be doing the opossit effects of a black hole that chomps down on anything that gets to close, this object(if found) would back hand them across space making for some surreal physics in the process.

[@mk_rexx]

​@@Kamikater0815I guess because it hardly looks like an atom. Less of a planet with moon/s, more like a binary system.

[@Noobprokermit]

@@someone4650Even better, for a short amount of time it can bond with hydrogen to form positronium hydride

[@r0kus]

So if someone could combine two muonium atoms with an oxygen atom, would that make a muter molecule?

[@stellarx20]

We've got heavy water and regular water, now light water? I guess this was inevitable, with all those kinds of ice.

[@nachoijp]

@@AndrewTBP Like, diet water?

[@shreyjain3197]

no because water doesnt obtain its word root from hydrogen and oxygen the molecule would be called either dimuonium oxide or muonium monoxide

[@caejones2792]

Mu2O? I think we'd need a masterball to study it properly.

[@rosyidharyadi7871]

🤣🤣🤣

[@Melody_Boi_Piyush]

5:50 Antielectron is also called as positron

[@eddiemarohl5789]

I love it when we say we'll understand the deepest parts of the universe but then moreoften then not we simply discover how much more we don't know about

[@HaydenX]

Discovering what you don't know is the first step to learning. If you aren't asking the right questions, you are getting the wrong answers.

[@Kitsudote]

That is actually really exciting, being able to test how antimatter is affected by gravity can fundamentally change our understanding of the universe!

[@realemperorkuzco]

1:30 Muons got more game than me.

[@pillrat]

Muon rizz

[@Rifat-21]

In just two millionth of a second too😢

[@joshuaweber5577]

Fr

[@godkid8059]

Hey, scientists actually found out the answer to the question at 5:10 . The answer is, yes, gravity does pull on antimatter the same as regular matter.

[@justsomenightowl7220]

Source?

[@gm_construct_13_betaexplor38]

@@justsomenightowl7220look it up ☠️

[@TheDiamondBladeHD]

​@@justsomenightowl72201.6 only for me

[@Jpx0999]

Blackholes​@@justsomenightowl7220

[@SoulcatcherLucario]

​​@@justsomenightowl7220here's the wikipedia page about it: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_interaction_of_antimatter obviously not a scientific paper, but i think this'll lead you in the right direction

[@fuge74]

I know that most people like to abide by the regular periodic table, but I think the "periodic table of sub-atomic particles" should be taught as a foot note. They are important in fringe physics.

[@mindulle21]

I missreaded that as fridge physics

[@fuge74]

@@mindulle21 ah yes the periodic table of thermodynamics.

[@gorkskoal9315]

lol soo stuff like californium?

[@mildlymarvelous]

@@gorkskoal9315 ????? Californium is literally just a regular element

[@danielm.1441]

Feeling the need to point out the existence of postronium (a bound state of an electron & a positron) which is surely 'simpler' than muonium... albeit much more prone to... disappearing into gamma rays.

[@pedrosso0]

simpler, yes. However it doesn't have the same structure as an atom in the way of a nucleus and other particles orbiting it

[@user-pr6ed3ri2k]

yeee

[@danielm.1441]

@@pedrosso0 Which isn't _really_ how atoms behave... Each particle is confined by the Coloumb potential of the other, & their wavefunctions localise to a region about their common centre of mass. Positronium has energy levels much in the same way as muonium or hydrogen, they're less bound to one another, but they are there.

[@voidwyrm6149]

there's also "true muonium" which is a muon and an antimuon bound together

[@pedrosso0]

@@danielm.1441 I haven't learned much of the wave functions yet and I'll assume your right. My point is just that the lack of symmetry between the masses

[@circlebird9013]

This is super cool! Will be keeping an eye on this research for sure

[@toasterbox160]

Hank, you seem to have become more genuine sounding. I thought you were 4 years ago. Continuously, you keep improving your ability to relay information in a professional and passionate way. Thank you for being you. Cheers to the whole team for your amazing contribution to the community. 🙏😁

[@dallor09]

If you drink mutonium water, then that is lighter water, meaning that after all these years… we have finally discovered diet water

[@luckylmj]

I've actually been wondering recently "given that antimatter is pretty much the opposite of regular matter, maybe it has negative gravity". Glad to hear that I wasn't the only person to think of that.

[@thomasnaas2813]

You might need reverse time to reverse gravity.

[@barefootalien]

Well... the truth is, antimatter _isn't_ pretty much the opposite of regular matter. It's exactly the _same_ as regular matter, except with the opposite electrical charge. Very few scientists actually believe there's any meaningful chance that antimatter will genuinely "fall up". Some experiments are done in hopes of discovering something wild or of confirming a theory. Others are done in the name of thoroughness. The antimatter gravity experiment is one of the latter. Technically it's _possible_ to contrive a version of reality in which antimatter for some reason behaves differently with respect to gravity from matter. Since it's possible, we should test it to be sure, which we are, but it's more of a "let's just make sure the universe makes sense" sort of experiment. You're definitely not the only one to think of it, though! And if it does genuinely happen that way, it would be mind-blowing and incredible and basically open up all kinds of Star Trek like possibilities! Buuuut, probably not, sadly.

[@infiniteplanes5775]

Don’t we have no idea how gravity works on the subatomic scale?

[@thejackal5099]

@@barefootalien You mean Mass Effect like possibilities?

[@barefootalien]

@@thejackal5099 ;)

[@jamesskinner4752]

I’m very excited. I started writing a scifi for myself 10 years ago about a villain manipulating muons and gravitons to rewind time and restart to his favor. Can’t wait to learn more about this.

[@derrickmancini4118]

I can't believe you just KZbind about one of my areas of research: how to test for antigravity using muonium!

[@StormBlackwell]

This was the craziest video I've seen from this channel in a long time. The whole concept is kind of blowing my mind. Atoms made from both antimatter and "normal" matter? That is pretty gosh darn cool.

[@JonJenkins1982]

I’m pretty sure we’ve experimentally verified that gravitation exerts force on antimatter the same way it does on matter

[@tarambukis-c2q]

This is 10 months ago

[@pb6481]

while seeing this video I thought: why don’t we have muonium fusion reactors then? but it turns out it costs more energy to make a muon than you get if you fuze them, according to the wikipedia page I found, and that makes sense.. maybe I wasn’t that far off though since apparently Muon-catalyzed fusion is a thing

[@garethdean6382]

As with all fusion the trick is making it efficient enough. Muons tend to be sticky' and not jump around enough hydrogen atoms to make it worthwhile.

[@paulmahoney7619]

@@garethdean6382 you know, one of the observations that confirms special relativity that we know of is high-energy muons being detectable around the surface of the earth. If we could find some mechanism to use a fraction of the energy from fusion to extend the lifetime of muons through time dilation, perhaps we could increase the numbers of particles fused before the muon decays to above breakeven energy.

[@sirthursday6159]

Makes no sense, why would you try to do nuclear fusion with extremely unstable atoms. A muon being a catalyst is also something completely different from fusing muonium atoms

[@bugsbunny8691]

Wow, a particle physics video that I understood and that actually excited me.

[@mydogbrian4814]

> The key point for me in this presentation was to remind me that it's not just spontaneous matter/antimatter annihilation on contact but that they have to have opposite charges too.

[@glenngriffon8032]

Muonium absolutely deserves a place on the periodic table!

[@onlythetruth883]

Glenn So muonium gets into the periodic table without having any protons?

[@hunterball7938]

It's what I call quasi-atomic. Not necessarily atomic, but behaves like one

[@aetheriox463]

@@onlythetruth883 i mean its got a positively charged nucleus and an electron in an orbit, sounds pretty atom-adjacent to me

[@daBuzzY90]

Close! They’re called exotic matter. Positronium, geonium, etc. All go into this category

[@franck3279]

As cool as it would be, I’m more inclined to see it as an exotic isotope of the hydrogen.

[@Jlewismedia]

6:06 waiting for it to hit the corner

[@the_real_tost]

WE GETTIN A NEW PERIODIC TABLE UPDATE WITH THIS ONE🗣🗣🗣🗣🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@badbiker666]

I love SciShow videos. Normally I learn a lot from them. But I have to admit, this one went right over my head.

[@Supremax67]

I am going to go to every school and add Mu on their periodic table. 😂

[@AGDinCA]

Me too, my friend. Me too...

[@purgruv]

Is that because of the antigravity?

[@AccidentalNinja]

As someone who was just learning about chemistry this evening, this is fascinating. It also sounds like it might be able to form an isotope if a neutron can get attached to the muon, though it's decay rate would probably mean that the atom is very short-lived.

[@AbruptAvalanche]

I’m no physicist, but muons don’t take part in the strong interaction like protons do, so I don’t think it would be possible to stick a neutron to one.

[@dweebteambuilderjones7627]

@@AbruptAvalanche You're correct. Muons, like all leptons, don't do the whole color charge thing by their very definition.

[@RecoveringNihilist]

We finally have a way to make a blimp more exciting than the Hindenberg.

[@duxtorm]

Your enthusiasm along for this stuff adds so much quality, I love this channel and the stuff you post!

[@conlon4332]

It's so fun to watch Hank get this excited! Haha! 1:46 2:21 5:16 6:07

[@ubertoaster99]

I've only ever seen him out-of-his-mind drunk playing board games, so this video made for a refreshing change.

[@LinksAwakenr]

It’s cool how they decided muonium is made of anti-muons, and anti-muonium is the one that uses regular muons. You know, makes things easy to remember.

[@msimon6808]

That is nothing. Unobtainium is made from money. If you want a little Unobtainium, you can't get it. If you want a lot, it will cost you and will take a long time.

[@mattsmith1859]

I know this is a real science show but I would pay good money to watch someone like Hank go through the Three Body Problem and just see what they think.

[@Brown95P]

I was wondering why muons sounded familiar and why I was relating them to quarks, so I went back and took a look at those popular quark tables, and there they were; not as quarks, but as *leptons* -- a family which, incidentally, also includes _electrons._ Science is funny sometimes, that you can make atoms -- once called the "building blocks" of all visible matter -- out of nothing more than leptons and antileptons.

[@DrDeuteron]

but they aren't stable. Only protons and electrons are stable, while neutrons can become stable in a nucleus b/c their decay to a proton is blocked. Some atoms are stable, but when ionized, the neutron decay is no longer blocked and they become radiaoctive. That is quantum weirdness at its best.

[@DJ-1986]

4:16 Particle physicists are not making all these exotic particles for fun. They make muonium to use experimental techniques from the well-developed field of atomic physics to study our murky subatomic reality => Probably exactly their definition of fun ;)

[@vintageswiss9096]

What's even more exciting for this, is that we explore the elemental table by combining elements of different molecular masses to hunt for new elements. This gives us a brand new ingredient to use in future elemental "recipes" while hunting for new elements.

[@josephmann6675]

You sometimes remind me how much fun you are talking about science. I’m glad that sometimes Google (or whatever the massive conglomerated corporate evil they are goes by these days) let’s me see you occasionally. Nicely done. Miss you in my feeds.

[@evryatis9231]

That would be alphabet now :)

[@cjr4908]

The question this brings to mind for me is, how do we determine what is matter and what is antimatter? It's easy for anything made out of electrons and quarks - that's what _we're_ made of, so antimatter is the opposite. But how does it work for muons and other, separate fundamental particles? If nothing is made of them and the only difference between a given fundamental particle and its antiparticle is the charge, how do we decide which is which? This occurred to me because I thought it was very interesting that the _muon_ forms stable configurations with _anti_ electrons while the _anti_ muon forms stable configurations with _regular_ electrons. Why don't we just call the first one an anti muon and the _second_ one a muon?

[@drewprice9284]

the first one is called a muon and not the second be because it a lepton, which are all negatively charged. Electrons are also leptons.

[@DanielBohnen]

Sometimes scientists get things wrong but the name stays the same for instance negative and positive charge electrons flow from negative to positive opposite to what was initially considered but they kept the name the same anyway

[@EEE-1409]

I think regular matter consists of the usual protons neutrons and electrons. But it's interesting seeing what we can do with subatomic particles that have opposite charges.

[@MajikkanCat]

I think it's because the ones that are like heavier versions of the electron (muon, tau) are considered matter, while the ones which are like heavier versions of the positron (antimuon, antitau) are considered antimatter. {Disclaimer: I'm just some random person and haven't got any degrees or anything.}

[@jacksonking718]

whoever made this thumbnail deserves props. One of the best ones I have seen.

[@camramaster]

Atoms are numbered based on the number of protons they have. Muonium has 0 protons. Therefore, is Muonium also Element Zero?

[@arnusdarnus4944]

Extremely interesting. I'm very interested to learn what the findings are for how antimatter interacts with gravity. Because if they are the same mass, and mass has an effect on the interaction with gravity,(as I understand it), then that seems like an exceptional base for comparison. The prospect of shedding light on the dark spots in our knowledge is so exciting!

[@lordgarion514]

That is something they'll probably never figure out TBH. One of the biggest problems in science is that quantum mechanics, and special relativity don't play nice. Actually they don't play at all. Special relativity is the science of gravity. When they put QM and SR together, trash comes out. In other words, they can't even figure out how subatomic particles of regular matter, and gravity work together.

[@franck3279]

What I understood is that they may have a normal mass but have their time reversed, so we would see them ’unfalling’

[@adilsongoliveira]

@@franck3279 Antimatter has the exact same characteristics as "normal" matter except for the charge so gravity, time, etc affacts them exactly the same.

[@franck3279]

@@adilsongoliveira except they are known to follow CPT symetry, so if time is reversed, eithercchirality orctime is too.

[@HiEv001]

@@franck3279 Just to be clear, while the Feynman-Stueckelberg interpretation allows _modeling_ of antimatter as though it's traveling backwards in time, physicists don't think that antimatter _actually_ goes back in time.

[@sethbrooks8889]

I haven't been this excited and blown away about psychics in a while, I hope the sciences continue to shine brightly

[@egotist-ical]

The Second Page of Google:

[@DeFaulty101]

Fun fact, an anti-electron is called a positron.

[@MarcusAsaro]

...And the bound state between the electron and positron is called positronium, the lightest hydrogen-like atom in the universe.

[@fyukfy2366]

"a quarky kind of hydrogen" I see what you did there Hank

[@roundhouse2616]

Hey I was thinking about the ‘does gravity affect antimatter the same way it does matter’ thing a while ago! It’s good to see it actually being studied!

[@astat1]

And what conclusions did you come to?

[@roundhouse2616]

@@astat1 Uh, none. I don’t have access to antimatter

[@nikhiljajatinanda1066]

​@@roundhouse2616 Definitely antimatter is different

[@geo3106]

@@nikhiljajatinanda1066 Not so fast.

[@therockbottom5256]

These videos continue to inspire me to go back to school for science. Makes it unbearably to utilize the new degree program (?) now that it’s started

[@achyutrastogi8080]

I love SciShow, I just love it. With the advent of the internet all interests are diluted but your channel keeps curiosity alive. Thanks.

[@unilajamuha91]

6:12 *Spoiler:* It didn't

[@MervynPartin]

Wow! This is something about which I was totally unaware. Excellent presentation.

[@pyroplay7436]

Sooo I'm in hospitality, and I like science, in a way, you know. I watch and learn new things, and every now and then I stumble to video like this where I don't know what is happening at some point. And then I go to comments and there are all PhD and scientist 😅

[@NathanBreese]

is anyone else bothered that muonium is made with anti-matter and antimuonium is made with normal matter?

[@orthotron]

They're both made of matter and anti-matter

[@bjornfeuerbacher5514]

_Both_ muonium _and_ antimuonium are made _both_ from matter _and_ antimatter. In muonium, the electron is matter, the anti-myon is antimatter. In antimuonium, the positron is antimatter, the myon is matter.

[@NathanBreese]

​@@bjornfeuerbacher5514🤯

[@JGHFunRun]

There's also positronium which is even lighter and a positron (anti-electron)/electron pair. It can form bonds, somehow, and decays incredibly rapidly. Funnily enough I just realized that since some elements create positrons when they decay (potassium in particular, but also others) it may be far more common than muonium, relatively speaking of course

[@Radio.Raptor]

This is what I love with science: You never know when a discovery will throw a curveball like this!

[@paulbennett7021]

STOP PRESS: Antimatter falls downwards.

[@conlon4332]

1:10 I'm still wondering about those "other weird subatomic particles", and also what happens to Muonium when the anti-Muon decays.

[@jdkoz98]

@Jordan Rodrigues woah dude you’re smart

[@kmarasin]

Me: Hank: dismisses my entire research field as "two other weird particles"

[@kennethphillips963]

Great video as always but what about positronium - an electron and positron orbiting each other? I presume it’s even lighter than muonium.

[@pnwscitech1589]

I am officially starting a petition to put muonium and antimuonium on the chart. THIS IS AWESOME!

[@edomeindertsma6669]

Don't forget positronium (and mononeutron matter maybe?). Having both muonium and antimuonium isn't necessary I think, each element has an antimatter version as far as we know, and some, like antihydrogen, have been observed.

[@SolomonUcko]

@@edomeindertsma6669 Wikipedia's article "Chemical symbol", section "Other symbols", list "Exotic atoms" lists muonium (mu), protonium (Pn), and positronium (Ps)

[@ItsMeAttilaGameplay2018]

@@SolomonUcko Sad neutronium and quarkium crying the corner. Neutronium is matter made of neutrons (found inside neutron stars) extreme unbelievably ultra massive. Quarkium is matter made of up, down and strange quarks (possible to find inside quark stars but hypotheticel yet) extreme unbelievably ultra super hyper uber massive (if real).

[@edomeindertsma6669]

@Solomon Ucko, cool I hadn't heard about protonium yet. Sadly it seems that no compounds have been observed yet, which would really cement its status as an element to me (or maybe it is more appropriate as an 'isotope', (anti)protonic hydrogen (see muonic atoms, ex: muonic hydrogen, muonic helium...)), though compounds are predicted. @ItsMeAttila-Gameplay, I wouldn't call neutronium an element, but I would prefer mononeutron matter (free neutrons).

[@danielmorton1606]

@@edomeindertsma6669 What's wrong with 'free neutrons'. Also muons cannot form a helium like atom because they don't interact via the strong force or have a strong force parallel.

[@GBart]

I've wondered about whether or not mesons could form atoms, but this just blows my mind

[@chx1618]

Has anyone gotten Muonium cold enough to get its molecular form? Also, I imagine that the dipoles could be tricky for electric interaction, but maybe they've got a plan for that.

[@spshkyros]

yes. This is the basis for MuSR. When you wack a beam of lower energy muons into a material, it will scatter around ionizing things for a bit before slowing down enough that it can bind to things. I doubt you would get muonium itself, but you will absolutly get muons at least briefly integrated into molecules.

[@amandao6686]

I had wondered if an hybrid atom like this could exist, like neutron, anti proton, and positron to make up a weird hybrid hydrogen atom.

[@SuperUAP]

Next up.. the futon particle.

[@TheLavenderPerson]

The Greatest Element, Muonium

[@novantha1]

This makes me wonder if in the long run we could see anti-muon based alternative atoms produced to produce lighter products dependent on chemical interactions, such as incredibly light batteries, for instance. Not sure how practical that would be with their current rate of decay, however 😅

[@photovincent]

6:20 Elementary school, haha 😂

[@toddkatz9700]

"I can't believe it's not hydrogen!" Now with 84% less mass!

[@Arlothed1no]

Do you ever think aliens are really excited to meet us and they see humans discover things like this and are like "YES! you're so close! You've almost got it!"

[@redstocat5455]

We don't want you bad, exempt you start it, like... Like we are an.older brother, we help you exempt you enerve us, So wanna do big particule accelerators an liitle faster that light ?

[@blueckaym]

You mentioned that Muon is very unstable and decays in about 2 millionths of a second. But what about Muonium (and anti-Muonium)? Are they more stable? And how much?

[@cck4863]

Unstable on EARTH. Who know . Maybe 99.999% of the whole Universe is made up of Muon. The whole space between each Star System is filled with them.

[@arpitsharma7495]

@@cck4863 they are only stable in high energy areas like some may be present in the cosmic rays and all.

[@cck4863]

@@arpitsharma7495 You need something to react with. For example, You can consider Hydrocarbon as high energy BUT without oxygen, it won't burn.

[@arpitsharma7495]

@@cck4863 ya that's the thing provided by the cosmic Ray's.

[@benjidoerr]

Muonium is just as unstable, because unlike the instability of chemical bonds or atomic nuclei, muons decay via the weak force. Chemical bonds are broken because of the electromagnetic force (the state of the bond was less electrically favorable than the outcome), and radioactive nuclei split apart because the strong force can't hold them together tight enough. So atoms are good at dealing with the strong and the electromagnetic force- like, that's what chemistry and nuclear physics are about -but they don't really have anything to do with the weak force. So the muon inside of Muonium decays just the same. Hypothetically, if the muon didn't decay, muonium would be quite stable electrically. It wouldn't experience the strong force, because its "nucleus" is a single lepton, but it would have an electrically stable conformation and could react with stuff pretty similarly to atomic hydrogen.

[@TinyFoxTom]

Electron-positron pairs briefly act like muonium before decaying via the weak force. Which made me realize that each particle would behave as the nucleus, meaning even nuclei occupy orbitals around their electrons to some extent.

[@DanielMether]

Could you imagine a universe where antimuons vastly outnumbered protons and muons? Mass and weight would be a nightmare to measure (assuming life could even form under such conditions)

[@Vagabond-Cosmique]

But.. Why?

[@3OHT.]

It’s funny you ask “but why” to a hypothetical consideration when your profile picture is an impossible object Why not?

[@garethdean6382]

You'd certainly want the antimuons to be more stable than in our universe or all matter would cease to be quite quickly.

[@jbradfield]

extremely weird hypothetical, considering muons have a half-life of a little over 2 millionths of a second. if anti-muons vastly outnumbered protons shortly after the big bang, there would be.... still not a lot of anti-muons now (there would however be a catastrophic number of anti-electrons, which would overwhelm the number of electrons and cause the universe to have an *enormous* positive electric charge, which... would blow it to kingdom come? immediately collapse in universe-sized black hole because of the enormous potential energy density? I don't know actually). if on the other hand the number of anti-muons *now* outnumbered the protons, then... if you work backward to the number of muons that would have to exist in the past you hit matter degeneracy at *every single point in space in the entire universe* well before you make it back to the big bang, so.... enjoy *that* black hole.

[@Vagabond-Cosmique]

@@3OHT. I meant: "why would mass be a nightmare to measure?"

[@Grunttamer]

Could antimuon forms of all the elements exist? Would be interesting to make Pb to have lighter radiation shielding. Obviously the lifespan of the particles is another hurdle.

[@geoff2504]

Weird thought from a physics imbecile, could the antimuon forms of all the elements lead to the discovery of antimatter as something that really exists? Finding a way to measure it would be the next discovery I guess. 🤪 ok, I know, the first sentence explains the rest of this post. DOH!

[@davinchristino]

Don't quote me on it, but I'm pretty sure you can make an atom out of literally anything, as long as there is stuff orbiting other other stuff (with electrostatic force). Of course, the lifetime is a huge issue.

[@Kirhean]

I have a couple of questions: Does Muonium fuse? If it does, what does it produce? If it does not, then why not?

[@stratonikisporcia8630]

According to what I've read, two muons cannot fuse because same charge repels. I'm not entirely sure why protons can fuse though they should have the same problem, but it may have something to do with gluons which muons do not have.

[@igoromelchenko3482]

When I grow up I want to be like Muonium.

[@edomeindertsma6669]

Radioactive?

[@azysgaming8410]

light??

[@notwithouttext]

mostly made of antimatter?

[@darkushippotoxotai9536]

Form relations that last 200 millionths of a second ?

[@mariakhan6090]

after watching so many videos of Hank, I can totally recognize his voice even blindfolded

[@luna1534]

I love how excited about this Hank seems

[@buhbird4698]

So after the anti muon decays into a positron (I’m assuming) would they not annihilate each other?

[@dweebteambuilderjones7627]

Correct.

[@DrMcSpankus]

This has me wondering: with a positive anit-muon technically forming a valid element, is it at all possible to pair its counterpart, a negative muon, with an anti-electron (positron)? Would the relationship between positive and negative charges still apply? Could this theoretically form an "anti-hydrogen"?

[@FerShibli]

this is mind blowing, to think that we could combine matter and anti-matter without exploding things and make anti-gravity, that's inspiring

[@NanashiCAST]

I feel like muonium might need a new kind of classification because it's possible that other elements can be substituted the same way like this or something.

[@cougerror2887]

If it falls upwards, would it be possible to make a space propulsion system out of it?

[@uliwehner]

why would you want to propel space?

[@cougerror2887]

@@uliwehner better than rockets

[@FirstNameLastName-okayyoutube]

Impressed it was allowed to be said what is really unknown. Usually with this stuff its taboo to admit whats " theory" from what is well experimentally tested theory. Kudos sci show

[@AILIT1]

Muonium is such a rebel.