Anti matter...what is it??

[fuzzynavel]

what exactly is anti matter....I sort of think of it like a normal atom but reversed where the proton circulate the nucleus containing electrons and neutrons....is this correct of am I barking up the wrong tree?

what can antimatter be used for??

 

[Cogman]

AntiMatter is a partical that has the exact opisite charge of "Normal" Matter. For example, an anti-electron (positron) has a positive charge instead of a negitive one. An anti proton has a negitive charge instead of a positive one. if an electron and a positron colide energy is released acording to the equasion e=mc^2.

Currently coliding matter with anti-matter results in the most efficent and largest amount of energy release known to man (fusion would be in second place to give you an idea of the power) The problem is anti matter is not picky with what it will colide with and is attracted to matter. So containing the stuff is hard, (you cant make a box out of matter to contain antimatter, as the antimatter will begin the destroy the box) Currently the only way to contain it is through large magnetic fields.

Howstuffworks.com Has a better explenation then I do. and another possible aplication for it.

 

[Cogman]

Another possible use for it would be to safly kill bacteria in food. When matter and anti matter are combined Gamma radiation is released and a lot of it. Currently the way we obtain large amounts of gamma radiation is by radioactive decay, That worries some people (not me) that a piece of the material used to kill bactieria might get on the food some how and cause them to become sick from the radioactive material. With antimatter a countroled amount of radiation would be exposed to the food and there would really be no worry of contamination as if there is some it instantly destroys itself.

 

[fuzzynavel]

if antimatter/matter collision produce so much energy then couldn't we use some of the power from that to induce the magnetic field necessary to sustain the antimatter in our matter filled world..there would hopefully be enough spare to power the rest of the world!

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: fuzzynavel
if antimatter/matter collision produce so much energy then couldn't we use some of the power from that to induce the magnetic field necessary to sustain the antimatter in our matter filled world..there would hopefully be enough spare to power the rest of the world!

Antimatter/matter reactions would simply be a method of transferring energy, much like burning coal, or nuclear reactions. They help transfer energy from one place to another - it's just a matter of how much energy can be obtained from a certain volume. Coal is more efficient in terms of volume than is wood. Fission is better than coal. As you seek to force more and more energy out of a hunk of matter though, it becomes more and more difficult to do so. Antimatter reactions would likely be difficult to control, but there's another problem - producing antimatter. We can do it already, but it's done only a few particles at a time, as a by-product of nuclear reactions. So producing antimatter in the first place would require a massive amount of energy (and new methods of doing so). Maybe a refinery of some sort on Mercury - it could utilize the abundant solar energy there as a power source.

So at any rate, yeah, we could probably use antimatter reactors as power plants, but they'd first need a cheap source of antimatter.
I'd say that fusion generators would be more popular - easier to make, and the fuel is easier to produce.

 

[jose]

So where do you get antimatter if it can't be contained ?

 

[f95toli]

You can contain it using magnetic "traps" (magnetic fields in the shape of a "bottle").

 

[TuxDave]

Originally posted by: fuzzynavel
what exactly is anti matter....I sort of think of it like a normal atom but reversed where the proton circulate the nucleus containing electrons and neutrons....is this correct of am I barking up the wrong tree?

what can antimatter be used for??

A side note... remember that proton != positron

 

[DrPizza]

Also, as far as antimatter goes, so far, (at the atomic scale) we have anti electrons, and anti protons. About 2 years ago, scientists created the first anti-hydrogen atom (an anti-proton is just the nucleus)

That's it. (until we get down to the quark and other leptons scale)

 

[pm]

Originally posted by: fuzzynavel
if antimatter/matter collision produce so much energy then couldn't we use some of the power from that to induce the magnetic field necessary to sustain the antimatter in our matter filled world..there would hopefully be enough spare to power the rest of the world!

Currently antimatter is by far the most expensive substance known to man. Currently, it's costs $62.5 trillion per gram. So containment is far less of a problem than production.

There's an interesting discussion on Antimatter here

 

[Kenny1234]

Originally posted by: pm

Originally posted by: fuzzynavel
if antimatter/matter collision produce so much energy then couldn't we use some of the power from that to induce the magnetic field necessary to sustain the antimatter in our matter filled world..there would hopefully be enough spare to power the rest of the world!

Currently antimatter is by far the most expensive substance known to man. Currently, it's costs $62.5 trillion per gram. So containment is far less of a problem than production.

There's an interesting discussion on Antimatter here

And the world production of antimatter is about 10 nanograms a year

 

[MobiusPizza]

Originally posted by: pm
Currently antimatter is by far the most expensive substance known to man. Currently, it's costs $62.5 trillion per gram. So containment is far less of a problem than production.

Well if you have a gram of antimatter you have enough fuel for 2 round tripes to Pluto

 

[SuperTool]

It doesn't matter

 

[Schadenfroh]

If the atom it is coliding with has a differant atomic mass than the antimatter, what will happen? Say given matter has 3 protons/neutrons and 5 electrons and the antimatter that gets shot at it has only 1 antimatter equivallent to neutron/proton/electron. With only part of the given matter be destroyed or only part?

 

[f95toli]

The short answer is: It depends.

The long answer is that it depends on the probablites of the various reactions which in turn depends on the energy of the initial and final states.
In addition to this there are a bunch of conservation laws that you have to fullfill, the obvious ones are conservation of charge and momentum and energy but there are also a few others.

 

[fuzzynavel]

I believe that CERN in switzerland produces 2000 anti hydrogen atoms a day/hour can't remember which!

 

[DrPizza]

Originally posted by: fuzzynavel
I believe that CERN in switzerland produces 2000 anti hydrogen atoms a day/hour can't remember which!

And it only takes 602,214,199,000,000,000,000,000 hydrogen atoms to get one gram.
Also, I believe that CERN is producing anti-protons, not anti-hydrogen atoms. You could call them anti-hydrogen nuclei though.

Nope, I'm wrong. CERN is producing antihydrogen at a rate of about 300Hz. Much faster than 2000 per day or hour. awesome CERN site!

But still, it's going to take a LOT of anti-hydrogen atoms to get 1 gram.

To visualize the size of the number, imagine the entire state of texas being covered by a layer of fine sand 50 feet thick. If each grain of sand represents 1 atom, then that massive amount of sand is the number of atoms required of anti-hydrogen to get 1 gram. Get a HUGE egg timer filled with all that sand... at even 300 grains of sand per second, it's going to take a long time.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
Also, as far as antimatter goes, so far, (at the atomic scale) we have anti electrons, and anti protons. About 2 years ago, scientists created the first anti-hydrogen atom (an anti-proton is just the nucleus)

That's it. (until we get down to the quark and other leptons scale)

We make tons of other anti particles. anti-protons are made of anti-quarks. All mesons are a quark-antiquark pair, and we can make those quite easily. They are actually photoproduced in the upper atmosphere (photon + p(+) -> n + pi(+) is one example). We've produced and detected the antiparticle to every particle we know about thus far, just not in great quantities.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: DrPizza

To visualize the size of the number, imagine the entire state of texas being covered by a layer of fine sand 50 feet thick. If each grain of sand represents 1 atom, then that massive amount of sand is the number of atoms required of anti-hydrogen to get 1 gram. Get a HUGE egg timer filled with all that sand... at even 300 grains of sand per second, it's going to take a long time.

We'll just see about that.

*turns over hourglass*

 

[flashbacck]

Originally posted by: Cogman
Another possible use for it would be to safly kill bacteria in food. When matter and anti matter are combined Gamma radiation is released and a lot of it. Currently the way we obtain large amounts of gamma radiation is by radioactive decay, That worries some people (not me) that a piece of the material used to kill bactieria might get on the food some how and cause them to become sick from the radioactive material. With antimatter a countroled amount of radiation would be exposed to the food and there would really be no worry of contamination as if there is some it instantly destroys itself.

Yeah, people freak out every time the term "radiation" is used. But irradiating food or items to sterilize is probably the safest way to do it.

 

[Kibbo]

I'll take some radiation in my food, so long as I can still have my beef as rare as possible.

 

[Zero Plasma]

After many long hours of study top scientists have learnt that it is some type of matter!

 

[xxsk8er101xx]

i read up on anti-matter energy and the US airforce has picked up the research because of a recent discovery. I wish i saved the article but i didn't... well maybe i did i'll look for it ... i think the discovery was that they found an easier way to make anti-matter.

If we can make anti-matter energy plants this would revolutionize all of mankind forever. But, it won't happen as long as oil is still around.

I guess for a gram of anti-matter costs like trillions of dollars heh. its either a billion or a trillion. still a lot either way.

the only problem though is that if it was made into a weapon it could literally destroy the world.

 

[xxsk8er101xx]

anti-matter is the opposite of matter.

if you and then the anti-you were to collide you would destroy yourself. Think of a +1 and a -1 and adding (colliding) and you get 0 (nothing) and energy is produced.

it is theorized that there is an entire part of the universe that is nothing but anti-matter. If a matter based galaxy were to collide with an anti-matter based galaxy it would cancel each other out. Likely to produce a rather huge explosion too.

with anti-matter you get efficient, clean - no radiation, and abundent energy. a couple grams could probably power a large block. The bad is that it could also destroy the world if used as a weapon. it is more powerful then any nuclear bomb. If i can remember right, i think a dynamite stick that is anti-matter were to explode it would be like dropping the most powerful nuclear bomb. I think its a bit more then that though. but the good is that that same stick of anti-matter could power an entire state for a month or more.

i'm don't have a degree in science though but CIS. just repeating what i've read and trying to remember heh. so ya look it up.

 

[harrkev]

proton + anti-proton = boom
neutron + anti-neutron = boom.

I would not keep anti-pasta on the same table as regular pasta. The whole restaurant could explode.