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points by explodes 4 days ago | 0 comments

Learning about "the third dimension of the periodic table" (exotic atoms) from this article just fills me with wonder.

I wish I were a particle physicist... Such an amazing field, where you get to try to tear open the universe and peek inside.

[–] gus_massa 3 days ago

> They have even created hybrids of matter and antimatter, in which a nucleus containing protons is orbited by negatively charged antiprotons. In short, you can have regular hydrogen, muonic hydrogen, kaonic hydrogen, antiprotonic hydrogen, and so on.

Most of them live for a very short time, less than a millisecond. If you want to start with something that you can buy and put on your desktop try https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_water But beware that it's almost identical to normal water. (The other variants discussed in the article are more different but very expensive and short lived.)