Lancaster Posted June 21, 2006 Report Share Posted June 21, 2006 What's the deal with Antimatter? I was reading the wikipedia article, and I think I have a basic understanding, but the different reports I've read on it seem to contradict each other. I became especially interested after reading Dan Brown's Angels and Demons (of course, you can never take anything he writes seriously, 'naw' mean?). I heard that it takes a year and a billion dollars to create one gram of Antimatter. But I also heard that they don't even have Antimatter yet. And how powerful is an Antimatter bomb? One of the most interesting things I've heard is the possibility of an Antiverse, an entire universe of Antimatter. Things seem so sketchy, can anyone clear this up? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UncleAl Posted June 21, 2006 Report Share Posted June 21, 2006 Start with the quantum vacuum. Pump in enough energy (e.g., a 1.022+ MeV photon) and satisfy the selection rules for conversion. All conservation laws are obeyed during matter/antimatter pair production. Google"pair production" 704,000 hits One kilotonne nuclear yield is 23.26 mg of matter plus 23.26 mg of antimatter. There are no "universes" of antimatter or we would see annihalation radiation where they touched ordinary matter. The Weak Interaction is strictly left-handed. Matter and antimatter are not bulk indistinguishable and interchangeable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay-qu Posted June 21, 2006 Report Share Posted June 21, 2006 do a search of this site on the matter (no pun intended :naughty:) Im sure it will turn up many interesting and extensive answers to your questions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sanctus Posted June 21, 2006 Report Share Posted June 21, 2006 At CERn they have anti-matter so your info is wrong, but about the quantity and prices I think to remember that it was a couple of anti-atoms. If your antiverse is in another space-time why not, but if you think it somewhere in our universe then uncle al is right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronthepon Posted June 21, 2006 Report Share Posted June 21, 2006 Making an antimatter bomb is stupidity. Dan Brown does fiction. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IDMclean Posted June 21, 2006 Report Share Posted June 21, 2006 Sadly, the air force is looking at developing said weapon type... I hope it is not realized in this century. The atomic bomb makes use of like 30% max of the availible destructive energy. Anti-matter is instant 100% conversion from mass to energy in increments of time far below what humans can percieve. The destructive power of an anti-matter device would make the H-bombs look like fireworks. Fatman was a mere 4,630 kg in mass. if even a tenth of that was Mass/Anti-Mass, that would be 46.3 kg of reactive matter. If 23.26 mg mass + 23.26 mg Anti-mass is 1 kiloton. Then 46.3 Kg would equate to 995270 Kilotons of blast power. That's nearly a gigaton of energy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lancaster Posted June 21, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 21, 2006 I did see that antimatter is the only known explosive that is 100% efficient. And I think that the Antiverse would have to be completely separate, otherwise we'd all be annihilated right now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay-qu Posted June 21, 2006 Report Share Posted June 21, 2006 wouldnt want our brane to touch with that universes one :eek2: big bang Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mercedes Benzene Posted June 21, 2006 Report Share Posted June 21, 2006 Maybe we could make small antimatter weapons.... like a tiny little bead or something... I guess that would have to involve nano-tech though....Although, if that were the case, what would stop terrorists from creating larger weapons that could destroy entire countries....?? You're right KickAss. BAD IDEA!!! How is antimatter created anyway?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheFaithfulStone Posted June 21, 2006 Report Share Posted June 21, 2006 Object lesson from this thread. Dan Brown books make you stupid. Kidding. Kidding. Seriously, when Dan Brown says something "scientific" assume it's untrue. TFS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pgrmdave Posted June 21, 2006 Report Share Posted June 21, 2006 How could one potentially store antimatter, though? Or would an antimatter weapon have to create the antimatter during use? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay-qu Posted June 21, 2006 Report Share Posted June 21, 2006 Maybe we could make small antimatter weapons.... like a tiny little bead or something... I guess that would have to involve nano-tech though....Although, if that were the case, what would stop terrorists from creating larger weapons that could destroy entire countries....?? You're right KickAss. BAD IDEA!!! How is antimatter created anyway??and how would one shoot an anti-matter bead through air(matter)? see above for the manufacturing explanation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay-qu Posted June 21, 2006 Report Share Posted June 21, 2006 How could one potentially store antimatter, though? Or would an antimatter weapon have to create the antimatter during use?The antimatter would have to be charge (positrons) so that it could be contained within a magnetic field, inside a vacuume sealed container. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pgrmdave Posted June 21, 2006 Report Share Posted June 21, 2006 That still sounds pretty dangerous. Even if they created a storage with a perfect vacuum, there are always possibilities - fires, earthquakes, strong storms, terrorism, human stupidity/incompetance - that could make just enough difference to start an explosion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay-qu Posted June 21, 2006 Report Share Posted June 21, 2006 well its not much of a problem at the moment, as we cant make enough of the stuff for a big bang - also you cant store to much of the same charged particles in one place, ie if there was to many positrons in the container they would repel each other and overcome the field. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lancaster Posted June 21, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 21, 2006 Object lesson from this thread. Dan Brown books make you stupid. Kidding. Kidding. Seriously, when Dan Brown says something "scientific" assume it's untrue. TFS What scares me is the millions of people that read his books and take them literally. Dan Brown has a knack for taking something that MAY be true, listing facts that are SORT OF true about it, throwing in some speculation commonly dismissed by experts, and then making it into a story that sound very believable. Just more incentive to research the topic yourself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CraigD Posted June 21, 2006 Report Share Posted June 21, 2006 How could one potentially store antimatter, though?See my 3/29/06 post ”Antimater traps”. There are several posts in its thread similar to ones in this one.Or would an antimatter weapon have to create the antimatter during use?Unlikely and not useful, I think. By almost any conceivable near-term technology, antimatter creation is very energy inefficient, on the order of thousands or millions of units of energy required to produce one energy unit of antimatter.The antimatter would have to be charge (positrons) so that it could be contained within a magnetic field, inside a vacuume sealed container.Neutrally charged antiatoms of antihydrogen have been made, and traps capable of storing them. There are practical reasons to prefer storing antimatter (or matter) in atomic, rather than completely ionized, form. The net charge of a large ion cloud, while making it possible to handle magnetically, introduces many difficulties – one being that moving such a cloud induces a strong magnetic field, which can induce electric current in any nearby conduction. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.