Angels and Demons: Facts and Fiction

 

Dan Brown's book Angels and Demons is a detective story about a secret society that wants to destroy the Vatican using an antimatter bomb. In the book, the antimatter is stolen from CERN

 

CERN has a website with a FAQ that tries to set the scientific record straight on CERN and on Antimatter.

 

 

examples:

Does CERN exist?

Well, yes, it does.  You can see us to the left and slightly up from the centre of the city of Meyrin.

Does it consist of red brick buildings with white-frocked scientists running around carrying files?

No, that is rather far from reality; we have mostly white buildings made of concrete and the scientists wear everyday clothes and they mostly do not carry files.

Can we make antimatter bombs?

No. It would take billions of years to produce enough antimatter for a bomb having the same destructiveness as 'typical' hydrogen bombs, of which there exist more than ten thousand already.

Do you make antimatter as described in the book?

No. The production and storage of antimatter at CERN is not at all as described in the book: you cannot stand next to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and see it come out, especially since the LHC accelerator is not yet in operation. 

 

much more real science (and humor) at 

 http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/en/Spotlight/SpotlightAandD-en.html