Posted on 10/04/2004 9:33:33 AM PDT by Mike Fieschko
The U.S. Air Force is quietly spending millions of dollars investigating ways to use a radical power source -- antimatter, the eerie "mirror" of ordinary matter -- in future weapons.The most powerful potential energy source presently thought to be available to humanity, antimatter is a term normally heard in science-fiction films and TV shows, whose heroes fly "antimatter-powered spaceships" and do battle with "antimatter guns."
But antimatter itself isn't fiction; it actually exists and has been intensively studied by physicists since the 1930s. In a sense, matter and antimatter are the yin and yang of reality: Every type of subatomic particle has its antimatter counterpart. But when matter and antimatter collide, they annihilate each other in an immense burst of energy.
During the Cold War, the Air Force funded numerous scientific studies of the basic physics of antimatter. With the knowledge gained, some Air Force insiders are beginning to think seriously about potential military uses -- for example, antimatter bombs small enough to hold in one's hand, and antimatter engines for 24/7 surveillance aircraft.
More cataclysmic possible uses include a new generation of super weapons -- either pure antimatter bombs or antimatter-triggered nuclear weapons; the former wouldn't emit radioactive fallout. Another possibility is antimatter- powered "electromagnetic pulse" weapons that could fry an enemy's electric power grid and communications networks, leaving him literally in the dark and unable to operate his society and armed forces.
Following an initial inquiry from The Chronicle this summer, the Air Force forbade its employees from publicly discussing the antimatter research program. Still, details on the program appear in numerous Air Force documents distributed over the Internet prior to the ban.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
test it on iran.
Would such a weapon work against Kerry? He has no substance that could react with antimatter.
Load the photon torpedoes.
The Black Budget Report: An Investigation into the CIA’s ‘Black Budget’ and the Second Manhattan Project
http://www.exopolitics.org/Report-Black-Budget.htm
In the book, "The God Particle" anti matter is discussed. Evidently it is regularly produced at Fermilab outside of Chicago. Granted, the quantities are small, but it has been produced.
We can neither confirm nor deny the presence of antimatter weapons...
In the year 2037, President Joseph G. Bush announces that the united states will begin unilaterally dismantling and disposing of all its nuclear weapons. When asked why, he merely replies " 'cause we don't need em any more."
Ping.
I think it's called "Psychological Operations". They managed to convince half the world that alien technology was being tested at Area 51.... it was probably the same panle who came up with this story.
Are Dilithium Crystals obsolete already?
200% efficiency compared to a paltry 1-2% for nuclear weapons.
As so often happens, the writer is a dunce. A positron is an antielectron. When electrons and antielectrons collide, they annihilate.
I can't believe antimatter weapons are close at all. How do you store the antimatter? Unlike a TNT bomb that just sits there forever, an antimatter bomb must be kept fed with energy just to maintain the magnetic barrier between the antimatter and the ordinary matter universe. That is, it takes continual energy to keep it from detonating.
They have tested a rudimentary transporter, now all we need are phaser banks and warp drive an we are in business.
Hey guys. Question for COE: does the anti-matter/matter annihilation produce more energy than a fission reaction? I know it requires a tremendous amount of energy to produce a very small amount of a/m.
LMAO!
Hehehe...
Damn, and I just upgraded to the DC 386SX
SO9
VR. Dude. Get with the program: Tupperware. It's in.
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