Sci-Fi Geeks Hail Creation of Antimatter Atom, Demand Time Travel And Starships By Monday

Don't just stand there gawping, I need warp factor 7 by Monday

Millions of people who unashamedly own a complete DVD set of Babylon 5 have hailed today’s news that Cern physicists have successfully held 38 antimatter atoms together for a fifth of a second as the long-awaited breakthrough which will enable us all to travel freely throughout the space-time continuum by next week.

“We build a strong 'magnetic bottle' around where we produce the antihydrogen and, if they're not moving too quickly, they are trapped," explained Professor Jeff Hangst of Denmark’s Aarhus University, who works on the Alpha antihydrogentrapping project. "What we'd like to do is see if there's some difference that we don't understand yet between matter and antimatter."

“Do that later,” urged Zaphod Tribble, a 39-year-old kidult from Birmingham with a large but ultimately tragic collection of flip-up mobile phones. “I want to see what happens when I fire photon torpedoes into black holes, so ideally I need a Battlestar if you can manage it - although I’ll settle for a Voyager-class ship, as long as it comes equipped with a Seven Of Nine.”

"We have a long way to go yet; these are atoms that don't live long enough to do anything with them,” cautioned Professor Gerald Gabrielse of Harvard, who first created antihydrogen in 2002. “So we need a lot more atoms and a lot longer times before it's really useful - but one has to crawl before you sprint.”

“Yes, yes, great,” interrupted Mr Tribble. “But could you fast-forward to the bit about how much antimatter I’ll need to get myself, a lightsabre and a DVcam to Bethlehem circa 4BC and back again? There’s an argument I’d like to settle with my YouTube nemesis, danielfaraday42.”