Scientists Generate Powerful Antimatter Ray

Fox News ^

[NYFreeper]

Researchers at North Carolina State University have produced the world's most powerful antimatter beam.

"There is a reactor in Munich, Germany, that has been generating those types of radiation beams for some time now, and our analysis of the data shows that we have exceeded what they have reported," Dr. Ayman Hawari, director of the Nuclear Reactor Program at North Carolina State, told the university's Web site.

[NYFreeper]

Need to get this guy on it.....

[Rick_Michael]

Can anyone tell me what this means to anyone?

[ECM]

Yeah, Warp 10, Scotty!

[bajabaja]

If I understand this correctly Rick_Michael, a consortium of European governments funded an accelerator project that was designed to “get to the ultimate questions” of particle physics. The US Congress and various Administrations decided against funding a competitor accelerator, making the European scientists rather proud and certain they would make more important discoveries. It seems, if this report is accurate, that some tarheels did something the European sponsored projects were not able to do. NYFreeper posted this, so he is likely the expert, but if you speed very small particles up (usually by slinging them through a series of magnets) and then crash them together the resulting scatter gives you clues about the particles’ initial composition. Of course, like everything scientific, this will just lead to more questions. But maybe the tarheels found out something on the cheap.

[DoughtyOne]

Yes this is nice, but without the trilithium crystals it’s just a hollow achievement. Besides, this women’s movement thing is really beginning to grate me something fierce. Most physicists agree that Uncle-Matter should have been persued first.

I'm no expert here obviously, but this has 'weapons ready' written all over it. Is that off base?

[KKing]

Good explanation at Wikipedia - The military application of this technology is interesting.

[DoughtyOne]

They could tell ya but they’d havta...

Well nevermind. I’d also like to know what applications this might be used for beyond the few mentioned in the article.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Well...here's a picture:

[NurdlyPeon]

Anti-matter? It just doesn’t matter.

[DoughtyOne]

Looks like something from an alien abduction movie. What is that, a shoe polisher?

“Step into the light DoughtyOne. Step into the light...”

“This is DU central, is he buying it?”

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

It’s a new interrogation method since we can’t do water boarding....they’ll move it to Gitmo...

[NYFreeper]

I’m no expert on this subject, but I thought it was pretty cool that the students at NC State were able to do this. Since I’m a Trekie, it also conjured up images of Scotty in a Jefferies tube trying to cut the matter-antimatter fuel flow to the warp engines. From TOS episode “That Which Survives”.

[MaxMax]

Testing facility Z, notice all the patrons have been vaporized

[Lancey Howard]

Can anyone tell me what this means to anyone?

It's a death ray.

[hoagy62]

When I read this, only two words came to mind: John Titor.

[highlander_UW]

Activate the Omega 13.

[Spktyr]

IIRC, that’s the “glow” inside a nuclear fission reactor, known as Cherenkov radiation. With the exception of some low power research reactors (which is where that pic was taken), if you see that with your naked eyes inside a reactor (and not through a shield of some kind), it’s too late - you’re dead.

[DoughtyOne]

Good. I don’t want it near me. NIMBY... LOL

[NYFreeper]

I don’t know if it is weapons ready or not but as Kirk and Garrovick could tell you, an ounce of antimatter has the explosive force of more than 10,000 cobalt bombs.

[DoughtyOne]

Thanks

Yikes