Posted on 09/18/2002 11:47:20 AM PDT by blam
Scientists claim antimatter breakthrough
Scientists have announced the first large-scale production of antimatter.
A team based at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research in Geneva say they have developed a large amount of the substance.
Antimatter is a reverse form of ordinary matter. When the two kinds of matter meet they annihilate each other in an enormous burst of energy.
It's this process which provides the power source for Starship Enterprise in its film and TV space adventures.
Physicists have made only very small quantities of antimatter before. But the CERN team say they have made at least 50,000 atoms of anti-hydrogen, the antimatter counterpart of normal hydrogen.
They admit the achievement will not lead to starship-style warp drives - at least not in the foreseeable future.
But it could help scientists answer some of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the universe.
Team member Professor Michael Charlton from the University of Wales at Swansea said: "This is a milestone that has opened up new horizons, to enable scientists to study symmetry in nature and explore the fundamental laws of physics which govern the universe."
He says it will also help scientists address what happened to the antimatter created in the Big Bang.
According to Nature, the CERN scientists used sophisticated electric and magnetic field traps and ultra-low temperatures to generate the anti-atoms.
Story filed: 19:02 Wednesday 18th September 2002
Get ahold of Robert Forward's book Indistinguishable From Magic, which has a nice long chapter on antimatter. Basically, the magnetic field would keep the atoms away from the walls of the container generating the field. The interior is a vacuum.
You should be able to find it at a used bookstore (it's paperback).
Too bad he's driving a Pinto :o)
Hate to be Clintoneque, but it depends on your meaning of "create". In an antimatter/matter reaction, the entire mass of both sorts of matter is converted to energy, via Einstien's famous E=MC^2. In a fission or even fusion reaction only a very small fraction of the mass of the matter is converted to energy, the matter products of the reaction having very slightly less mass than the original atoms. With matter/antimatter there are no reaction products other than energy, in the form of gamma rays.
Safer than nuclear? Probably not, but since the techology isn't here yet, who can say?
BTW, 50,000 atoms is still a miniscule amount of anti-matter. I don't have time at the moment to run through the calculations to determine how much energy in familiar terms, such as kilowatt hours or tons of TNT, that would be liberated if they were combined with 50,000 normal hydrogen atoms.
No. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only be converted from one form to another.
Matter/anti-matter reactions are a release of energy. Not the creation of it.
Would it be safer than fission? Likely, yes. But only if the reaction can be controlled.
But seriously, they found Algore's brain?
So they're going to explain why women go to the restroom in groups?
Well, my first question is: Are these really anti-atoms, or just anti-protons? If they are anti-atoms, then magnetic containment will fail easily as atoms are electrically neutral. (The magetic moment of the hydrogen atom is way too small to use for containment at any reasonable temperature, IIRC.)
Secondly, let's do some calculations. That number of particles is still only 8.303 X 10-20 moles, a teensy amount. Its mass is only 8.369 X 10-20 grams.
Now, assuming we have a like mass of normal hydrogen atoms, and they're combined and annihilate with 100% efficiency, there will be produced 1.504 X 10-5 J. For comparison, one kWh is equivalent to 3.6 X 106 J, so, our antihydrogen will produce 4.129 X 10-12 kWh; just over four trillionths of a kWh.
Sometimes you're a very funny guy, Poobster!
This is one of those times. ;^)
Available from www.barnesandnoble.com
Robert L. Forward coauthored another book "Mirror Matter: Pioneering Antimatter Physics", which is not available on B&N but they do list it.
Another book they list and carry is "Antimatter: The Ultimate Mirror" by Gordon Fraser
Not necessarily. It depends on how the photons (X and gamma rays) are converted to the velocity of the reaction mass. It should be a fairly clean reaction, since no neutrons would be produced to induce radioactivity and there are no products of the reaction, other than the photons. If the ammount of matter involved in the reaction were not all that large, say nothing more than a few kilotons energy equivalent, you could have an Orion type ship, with no fallout. Old Bang Bang (Orion) had the problem of using nuclear fission explosives as it's propulsion method. Not a clean reaction, but might have been practical nonetheless if not for the atomospheric test ban treaty.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.