Antimatter

[SpeCtrE]

Antimatter is the ultimate energy source. It releases energy with 100% efficiency (nuclear fission is 1.5% efficient.) Antimatter is 100,000 times more powerful than rocket fuel. A single gram contains the energy of a 20 kiloton atomic bomb--the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. In addition to being highly explosive, antimatter is extremely unstable and ignites when it comes in contact with anything...even air. It can only be stored by suspending it in an electromagnetic field inside a vacuum canister. If the field fails and the antimatter falls, the result is a "perfect" matter/antimatter conversion, which physicists aptly call "annihilation." CERN is now regularly producing small quantities of antimatter in their research for future energy sources. Antimatter holds tremendous promise; it creates no pollution or radiation, and a single droplet could power New York City for a full day. With fossils fuels dwindling, the promise of harnessing antimatter could be an enormous leap for the future of this planet. Of course, mastering antimatter technology brings with it a chilling dilemma. Will this powerful new technology save the world, or will it be used to create the most deadly weapon ever made.

What do you know of this.

[Des]

it can also be used for space travel - arnt they also looking into that with matter? be able to get you across our social system in a matter of days or somthing..

stunning

[SpeCtrE]

I just got through it as I was reading though Dan Brown's website. I don't know about it , but ... is there anyone here who knows more about it?

[Dyst]

If you want to learn more about anti-matter, (whilst reading a fine book, btw) I recommend you to read Dan Brown's book Angels & Demons. It is essentially about anti-matter being planted in the Vatican by an ancient secret anti-religious brotherhood called the Illuminati. Hehe. It is very interesting.

[SpeCtrE]

Keiza, Thanks,.... I just ordered the book

[Ramshaw is all]

Thats amazing, i thought antimatter was only theoretical. 100% effeciency, the possibilities are endless

[Paradox]

CERN is now regularly producing small quantities of antimatter in their research for future energy sources

Producing? What's antimatter made out of? This is very interesting. You say it makes no pollution? That's great. Though being highly explosive, is it worth it? I know nuclear plants can be potentionally dangerous, but just one gram of this stuff could destroy a city like Hiroshima!?! Man! That's some pretty dangerous stuff!

[eyedrop]

Producing? What's antimatter made out of? This is very interesting. You say it makes no pollution? That's great. Though being highly explosive, is it worth it? I know nuclear plants can be potentionally dangerous, but just one gram of this stuff could destroy a city like Hiroshima!?! Man! That's some pretty dangerous stuff!

Antimatter is different verisons of the nucleons we have. The antimatter version of an electron would be a positron, a particle opposite of an ordinary electron. If it had meet an electron both of them would have annahilated each other totally. It should exist different anti-versions of all the particles we know of but I'm not sure the scientists have found proven all of them yet.

I think positrons are a result of some nuclear reactions were the number of neutrons and protons are changed. Imagine the positron loses it's positive charge and becomes neutral (and loses some mass) and a positron is created since the energy cannot be lost.

[Dyst]

Obviously, the discovery of antimatter adds to the theory that everything in the universe consists of two reflecting sides, positive and negative, minus and plus.

[encephalon]

Obviously, the discovery of antimatter adds to the theory that everything in the universe consists of two reflecting sides, positive and negative, minus and plus.

That&#39;s a quick judgement, and could easily be erroneous. A religious person could easily say that it proves christianity (or any other good <> bad religion) because there&#39;s good matter and bad matter.

It&#39;s easy to automatically cling to things as proof to your own convictions. They rarely are, however, if given further consideration.

[Dyst]

I said it adds to it. It doesn&#39;t prove it.

A religious person could say that it adds to his/her view of things as well, yes. But it certainly doesn&#39;t prove it.

[Lamanov]

"It can only be stored by suspending it in an electromagnetic field inside a vacuum canister." Wow, i had no idea you could actually controll or produce antimatter.

"With fossils fuels dwindling, the promise of harnessing antimatter could be an enormous leap for the future of this planet."
"Will this powerful new technology save the world, or will it be used to create the most deadly weapon ever made ?"

It&#39;s highly possible, i hope. Although, as long as we live and work in this system the powerfull counties with developed technology will put on a monopoly to the rest of the world. As long as a science and technology are a "thing you own" the world as a whole will not benefit as much as it could in a rational system. When oil runs out or another, better fuel is found [such as antimatter could be] economy of OPEC members will colapse. Every advance in this overwhealmed system means another crisis.

Eyedrop, I heard about that too. When electron and positron clash > they annihilate each other and produce two photons. If a photon passes through matter it can split and form virtual electron or positron. Fascinating stuff. :P

[Don't Change Your Name]

Originally posted by Ramshaw is [email protected] 5 2005, 03:50 PM
i thought antimatter was only theoretical.
I thought the same.


If the field fails and the antimatter falls, the result is a "perfect" matter/antimatter conversion, which physicists aptly call "annihilation." CERN is now regularly producing small quantities of antimatter in their research for future energy sources.

Errrm...this doesn&#39;t sound "nice" at all.

[Dyst]

In our quest for philosophical achievement as well as scientific, it is a good thing. However, the antimatter will most probably lead to quite a few catastrophes through out time, as well. That is of course a matter of consern, but still, what we should look for is ways to stop such things from happening, not stop researching reality.

[Wurkwurk]

I understand if an antimatter electron hits a regular &#39;negative&#39; electron, total annihalation in the form of pure energy will occur. But can somebody clarify &#39;annihalation&#39; in this terms?

When thinking about it, having 100% efficient &#39;pure energy&#39; released, travel to the stars is within mankind&#39;s doorstep :o

[guerillablack]

What makes you think it can be used for time travel?

[Lamanov]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12 2005, 06:17 AM
I understand if an antimatter electron hits a regular &#39;negative&#39; electron, total annihalation in the form of pure energy will occur. But can somebody clarify &#39;annihalation&#39; in this terms?

Well, energy can&#39;t be destroyed. It can go trough qualitative change.
Positron is just an &#39;electron&#39; with reversed spin. When they [electron and positron] clash they produce two photons [two light flashes or light particles], which means they change - qualitatively.

[encephalon]

QUOTE (Ramshaw is all @ Feb 5 2005, 03:50 PM)
i thought antimatter was only theoretical.

I thought the same.

No, antimatter has been objectively identified. What remains theoretical is the existence of huge masses of antimatter (or rather, anti-masses) to explain the imbalance we seem to have in the universe. Anti-matter can be created in particle beams.

[guerillablack]

Noone has explained to me how it can be used for space/time travel.

[bur372]

The power it gives out could power a rocket or heat up xeon and expel it to create a moving forward motion. That&#39;s how space travel with anti-matter works.

[LSD]

What makes you think it can be used for time travel?

Noone has explained to me how it can be used for space/time travel.

A quick search for the phrase "time travel" reveals that it appears only twice in this thread, both times by you.

[guerillablack]

I meant space travel, that why i said space/time travel the second time. Thanks. Try again.

[LSD]

..right, so to you "space/time travel" means "space travel"?

Why then ....um.... why have the "/time" part, then? :unsure:

[guerillablack]

no it means, space and or time travel. Meaning i wanted to know how it can be used for space and or time travel.

Really you trying to hard. You are ruining a perfectly good thread.

[enigma2517]

No he&#39;s just pointing out something that confused me just as well :&#092;

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Of all things, producing the damn stuff is the hardest part. It takes millions of dollars worth of electricity to produce a single atom of it. So in order to harness the incredible power of matter/anti-matter annihilation, you must already have a massive energy base. Fusion at the moment seems the most likely candidate, but I personally would prefer an orbital solar furnace - a parabolic dish of reflective material that you can make any size, depending on materials used, for example, micron-thick aluminium foil would be perfect for building a truly massive solar furnace (Maybe up to 1000km diameter) The energy gathered would be pretty intense.

After making this very expensive material, you then have to store it. There are as many different types of anti-matter as there are matter, so you get anti-sodium and anti-lead etc. Anti-matter will react violently on contact with normal matter, including gasses, so you have to store it in a perfect vacuum. Also it can&#39;t touch the sides of the container, So you have to choose your anti-material carefully. Use anti-iron, so that you can contain it within a simple magnetic field. Try not to jog the container too hard.

So you want to use anti-matter as a weapon? Reasonably simple in principle, probably much harder in practice. The most simplest use of amat is to propel slugs of anti-iron as a planetary assault weapon - The slug will come screaming into the atmosphere, trailing mat/amat shockwaves all over the place, before impacting into the surface with enough explosive power to crack continents and shatter small moons.
Call the weapon something suitably dramatic like Godhammer or the Armageddon Gun.

[KC]

Of all things, producing the damn stuff is the hardest part. It takes millions of dollars worth of electricity to produce a single atom of it. So in order to harness the incredible power of matter/anti-matter annihilation, you must already have a massive energy base.

Well all that would have to be done is the first batch has to be produced. After that you can just use the antimatter just created to create more antimatter, and so on. And since CERN has already produced amounts of it, this shouldn&#39;t be a problem.

[Zingu]

Originally posted by Lysergic Acid [email protected] 20 2005, 10:19 PM
..right, so to you "space/time travel" means "space travel"?

Why then ....um.... why have the "/time" part, then? :unsure:


Time and Space are the same thing, so dubbed "Space-Time"; you can thank Einstein for figuring out why.

[Zingu]

Anti-Matter would be extremely hard to find; its actually quite fascinating actually. I will spare you the extra parts of theory (Its 11 at night); but it turns out, there might not actually be any anti-matter (at least naturally) in this universe. I remember reading about it, in the beginning; anti-matter and matter collided and cancelled each other out; but there was a greater amount of matter than of anti-matter...get where I am going at this...?

[SpeCtrE]

One thing that has been bothering me, Antimatter annihilates when it comes to contact with anything , right?

So, how is it expected to react when in contact with light. I mean, light is matter, it is made from small particles called quanta and obviously they have mass and they occupy space even if it is negligible. Isn&#39;t that the definition of Matter?

So, how is it that it is stored in transparent canisters?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12 2005, 08:00 AM
One thing that has been bothering me, Antimatter annihilates when it comes to contact with anything , right?

So, how is it expected to react when in contact with light. I mean, light is matter, it is made from small particles called quanta and obviously they have mass and they occupy space even if it is negligible. Isn&#39;t that the definition of Matter?

So, how is it that it is stored in transparent canisters?
Light is massless, so there is no mass for the anti-matter to react with.

[Elect Marx]

Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2005, 12:19 AM
Well all that would have to be done is the first batch has to be produced. After that you can just use the antimatter just created to create more antimatter, and so on. And since CERN has already produced amounts of it, this shouldn&#39;t be a problem.
How do you make more matter from matter? You could refine anti-matter with fusion and even make anti-material containers/robots to help but you would need the energy to create the matter.

Also I doubt that CERN has even a sixsextillionth (a big fucking number) of the matter you would need to fuse into some sort of useful form.

[Spoonman]

I take it that many of you have read "Angels and Demons" by Dan Brown? It is a novel based around antimatter and is where I learned much about it. Interesing stuff.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Well all that would have to be done is the first batch has to be produced. After that you can just use the antimatter just created to create more antimatter, and so on. And since CERN has already produced amounts of it, this shouldn&#39;t be a problem.

An incorrect assessment, as elect marx pointed out. Note that you can&#39;t violate the laws of thermodynamics, even with anti-matter.