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Yay for Science!
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Scientists trap and study anti-hydrogen for 16 minutes.
Yes, that's right. We have the beginnings of long-term antimatter storage. -- Bob --------- Then the horns kicked in... ...and my shoes began to squeak. 
next... on 60 minutes...
*KABOOM* "No can brain today. Want cheezeburger." From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies  Bob Schroeck Wrote:Scientists trap and study anti-hydrogen for 16 minutes.More importantly, we can now keep antimatter around for long enough to actually perform science on it (instead of what we've been able to do so far, which was say "yes, it can exist in our universe" with some confidence). -- Rob Kelk "Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of the same sovereign, servants of the same law." - Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
so how long till
1: we find a way to tap it for power and 2: we find a way to weaponise it?  dark seraph Wrote:so how long till1: Tapping it for power will do absolutely no good unless we break the conservation of baryon/leptons. For every antimatter particle we create we must create a matter particle which requires just as much energy as we would get out of an matter/antimatter annihilation. In effect we have to provide E to get m so that you can convert m back into E. This means that, at best, you will get back exactly as much energy as you put into the process of creating the stuff in the first place. However, that is at best. The mechanics are not going to be 100% efficient for a variety of reasons and thus antimatter power is, at this time, a pipe dream. Now, there is a way to break the conservation laws, because for some reason our universe is made up of matter when all current theories say that it should have mutually annihilated itself out of existence before the Big Bang even got a chance to start. However, for some reason we lost a whole lot of antimatter without it mutually annihilating. But even if we do figure out how that worked it would mean we were creating matter, since antimatter appears to be the stuff that goes away. 2: When Tom Hanks and company were filming the sequel to Davinci Code (the one with the magical Catholic antimatter bomb) they went to Cern to find out more about how to stuff worked. They were shown a containment bottle for antimatter. When asked what they do when they want to get rid of it the scientists said they just turn off the power. When asked how dangerous it was they said the power in the bottle was about enough to light a bulb for a fraction of a second. When asked how they could weaponise it the Cern scientists thought for a bit and then said that if you somehow could store the antimatter indefinitely it would only take running the collider for a thousand years and the entire energy output of the United States to create an explosion as power as a fission bomb. So in short: 1 & 2: A very long time, if ever. -------------- Epsilon
Fundamental research like this often brings discovery in related fields; being able to study the nature of anti-matter may give clues to more efficient fusion/fission or how to move forward in tangentially related fields.
Fundamental research is never a bad thing- as the MST3K Crowd one quipped 'this was back when science didn't have to have a purpose.' We are seeing and able to observe things we have never been able to before. Out-Fucking-standing! You want to eliminate a deficit or change your world for the better - invest in fundamental science, not jails.
Oh, never let it be said I think this research is pointless. Just because we won't have Warp Cores and Photon Torpedos out of the deal doesn't mean this stuff isn't insanely useful. The technology they created to safely contain antimatter for extended periods could be extended into quantum computing, for example. See, one of the big problems with quantum computing is random elementary particles going passing through your computer and "observing" the spins so that they stop being capable of holding several pieces of information at a time. A way to successfully screen out such would help lead to a massive breakthrough in computing power.
No, I'm all for Science, especially cool particle physics/creation of the universe scale science. ------------- Epsilon Quote:Tapping it for power will do absolutely no good unless we break the conservation of baryon/leptons.Well, as I recall, matter/antimatter particle pairs form spontaneously out of the fabric of space all the time -- it's the very reason why small black holes "evaporate". It's a long step from that to a practical system for doing so, but basically that means it's possible to do like those black holes and yoink one particle into containment while letting the other wander off on its own, before the two mutually re-annihilate. It should be cheaper, energywise, to harvest spontaneous antiparticles than it would be to make them. Might not be practical, timescalewise, but it's possible. -- Bob --------- Then the horns kicked in... ...and my shoes began to squeak. Bob Schroeck Wrote:Well, as I recall, matter/antimatter particle pairs form spontaneously out of the fabric of space all the time -- it's the very reason why small black holes "evaporate". It's a long step from that to a practical system for doing so, but basically that means it's possible to do like those black holes and yoink one particle into containment while letting the other wander off on its own, before the two mutually re-annihilate. It should be cheaper, energywise, to harvest spontaneous antiparticles than it would be to make them. Might not be practical, timescalewise, but it's possible.Yes, but the particles that spontaneously come into being are the size of quarks. Harvesting them for this kind of power would not only require skipping past stuff like the Uncertainty Principle (ie, how the hell would you know where, when and in what direction the antiquarks were coming into existence...) but it would be like trying to feed the entire population of the planet earth by growing individual grains of rice. I mean, it possible that all the matter in my computer desk will spontaneously rearrange itself into pure gold. Is it practical for me to base my economic decisions on it? No, for the foreseeable future unless we find some massively more efficient method of creating them antimatter power is beyond our means. --------------- Epsilon  Epsilon Wrote:Yes, but the particles that spontaneously come into being are the size of quarks. Harvesting them for this kind of power would not only require skipping past stuff like the Uncertainty Principle (ie, how the hell would you know where, when and in what direction the antiquarks were coming into existence...) but it would be like trying to feed the entire population of the planet earth by growing individual grains of rice. We don't have to break the uncertainty principle, we would just have to create a barrier that can separate them (in the black holes case this is the gravity gradient) that and wait for them to form along it's edge. Is this efficient? not even close. In terms of time/cost/output anything we currently have is a much better bet for generating power. If we want to crate large quantities of power I'm still rooting for fusion reactors. But (to drag this back on topic) the creation, and more importantly retention, of antimatter is definitely something that should be lauded. Understanding the fundamentals of science is always a good investment. After all, I doubt that anyone working on early semiconductors could envision the impact that integrated circuits would have on society. -Terry ----- "so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today" TF2: Spy sweno Wrote:Is this efficient? not even close. In terms of time/cost/output anything we currently have is a much better bet for generating power.Yeah. If we ever get around to using antimatter as a power source and making antimatter in any quantity [size=smaller](I'm not holding my breath here)[/size], it'll be because we need it for applications that require the output of an entire power plant but don't have room or carrying capacity for that plant to be on-site. [size=smaller](Ion thrusters on interplanetary spacecraft that take less than a decade to get from planet to planet, for example – that's one thing that Star Trek got right, even if it was applied way past the end of the curve.)[/size] The matter-antimatter reaction would be the equivalent of a battery charged at (and using the entire output of) a power plant, not a power plant itself. -- Rob Kelk "Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of the same sovereign, servants of the same law." - Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012 |
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