Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Flipside on November 17, 2010, 01:38:31 pm
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11773791
Scientists at Cern manage to successfully store an atom of Antimatter.
Cool Stuff!
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Well, there goes the Vatican.
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Woot, that's actually quite an accomplishment. Slowing the stuff down enough to trap it in a magnetic bottle has been tried for a long time without much success until l now.
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Yeeees, next come the Tsunami Bombs. :drevil:
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One atom down, about a hojillion more to go before antimatter can actually be used for something on a large scale.
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Two-tenths of a second is a pretty damn long time at that scale. Impressive.
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I have a feeling this is going to be one of those technologies that advances at a geometric rate. anti-mater might make for a nearly perfect rocket fuel.
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I doubt any beneficial uses will come quickly. Rockets maybe. More likely warheads. It's destructive power is too great and well you can expect the armies of the world to want that. Now if we survive those uses then yea rockets for peaceful purposes at some point.
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Antimatter will never be a cost-effective weapon compared to nukes in the short term.
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"in the short term" being the operative phrase.
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Possibly never. It will certainly never be effective for power generation, and while it may be a useful fuel or weapon, it's not clear that just using the equivalent energy/effort budget of nukes wouldn't get you a bigger bang or push.
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I suppose it's possible a different, cheaper, methodology may come up in the future, but certainly making it this way it wouldn't give the bang per buck of nukes.
I think it's more fascinating from a research point of things, Antimatter as such may not be directly useful for stuff, but being able to hold it stable long enough to examine it in detail may help point the way to power sources etc.
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Possibly never. It will certainly never be effective for power generation, and while it may be a useful fuel or weapon, it's not clear that just using the equivalent energy/effort budget of nukes wouldn't get you a bigger bang or push.
It's only 1000+ times more powerful than a nuke. Antimatter is the ultimate in terms of energy storage.
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Possibly never. It will certainly never be effective for power generation, and while it may be a useful fuel or weapon, it's not clear that just using the equivalent energy/effort budget of nukes wouldn't get you a bigger bang or push.
It's only 1000+ times more powerful than a nuke. Antimatter is the ultimate in terms of energy storage.
Which is utterly irrelevant to anything in the statement you quoted. Antimatter is effective as a way of rapidly releasing a great deal of energy in thrust or as a weapon, but in most conceivable development paths it is utterly useless for sustained power generation, and in either of the above applications it may never be cost-effective compared to the same energy/effort budget spent on nukes.
This is because of conservation of mass-energy - you'll never get more power out of antimatter generation than you put in - and because containment is wildly impractical and energy-expensive on its own; and because antimatter is not, as is often touted, 100% efficient in converting mass to usable energy.
The only probable way antimatter could become a practical energy source is if a pre-existing natural reservoir was somehow found. That's something we should hope won't happen in the near future.
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I think he meant actual energy storage, like, for when the volume of your energy source matters a lot. Examples may include rocket fuel or special ops/terrorist weapons.
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Rocket fuel and weapons were both examples I gave as a very extravagant but conceivably sane applications of antimatter. For almost any other form of energy storage it's not worth it. Even in those two applications, the same energy/effort budget in nukes would probably do it better.
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well, we have no idea how hard it will be to make anti-mater in 100 years, it might not turn out to be as hard as you think.
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Quite so, but it will nonetheless never be useful for anything except packing as much boom as possible into as small a space as possible. Because the antimatter must be synthesized from scratch, it will never be net-energy profitable, either as a thrust source or a weapon.
Compare that to nukes, which require minimal energy investment because they run off naturally occurring material.
If the ratio remains skewed so heavily in favor of nukes, antimatter will never escape scientific curiosity. And being awesome in PET scans.
As a factoid that came up on the Blue Planet forum recently, consider that antimatter, even used as a weapon, only converts about a half or two thirds of its yield into meaningful blast. That's far far bigger than a nuke, but so is the energy requirement to get any meaningful amount of antimatter in the first place. If you can spend X amount of energy/effort, and if it pays off with more results by spending it on nukes than antimatter, nukes will be the better pick.
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Unless there is abundant anti-matter available just for the taking. For all we know there is a brane right next to ours containing a universe that is totally antimatter. Finding a way to pull it through a higher dimension may be possible some day. Heck these type of experiments may lead to that in a 100 years.
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Right, thus the above comment
The only probable way antimatter could become a practical energy source is if a pre-existing natural reservoir was somehow found. That's something we should hope won't happen in the near future.
but I'd been thinking of antimatter inside our Level I; if some kind of isolated but accessible source like a neighboring braine opens up that would be less potentially catastrophic.
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I'm actually more excited for the research prospects of this, because as Battuta has said already the practical uses of antimatter for energy production and weapons are sketchy at best. I think that if these experiments using antimatter containment can help to answer the question of why our universe is predominantly composed of matter rather than antimatter (or even no matter at all -- it could just as well have been equal amounts of both and then everything annihilated to leave a sea of radiation), then that would be tremendously interesting.
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Yes, that!
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It's all fun until some jerk turns off your containment unit.
(http://www.thefwoosh.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/walter-peck.jpg)
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I was never really considering anti-mater as a power source, only as a high yield energy fuel.
though it would be hilarious if we made contact with an anti-mater universe and set up some sort of mater trade where we converted each others most useless materials into the most valuable energy source imaginable.
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That seems like it would be a rather dangerous relationship
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it would be fine, you just got to remember never to shake their hands... or breath their air...
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How the hell would contact be made...
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it would be fine, you just got to remember never to shake their hands... or breath their air...
Breathe their air? Lol, more like don't even touch their air. :P
It also occurs to me that the solar wind from an anti-sun of an anti-universe would be made of antiparticles as well, which would probably be lethal to anyone aboard a matter-ship trying to pass through the area. Unless the ship was really dense/thick <.<
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I was never really considering anti-mater as a power source, only as a high yield energy fuel.
Even as such in comparison to nuclear power it would really only be good for applications where raw output trumps efficiency.
Got any antimatter-powered Formula 1 cars?
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I guess the Air Force is looking into this..... (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/10/04/MNGM393GPK1.DTL)
Is this for real?
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"I think, we need to get off this planet, because I'm afraid we're going to destroy it."
says the guy working on the air force's anti-mater weapons program.
that is somewhat disturbing.
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"I think, we need to get off this planet, because I'm afraid we're going to destroy it."
says the guy working on the air force's anti-mater weapons program.
that is somewhat disturbing.
Its also very typically human lol, anyway its about time we replaced nukes with something more destructive and even less stable
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Human nature is doing a pretty good job I think.
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I never really understood the massive concern that certain individuals seem to have about "spreading our seed" across the solar system/galaxy to ward off any potential future catastrophe wiping out Earth. I mean, if a killer asteroid hits and wipes out civilization a few hundred years after I'm dead, it's not exactly any skin off my nose, is it? :p
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I never really understood the massive concern that certain individuals seem to have about "spreading our seed" across the solar system/galaxy to ward off any potential future catastrophe wiping out Earth. I mean, if a killer asteroid hits and wipes out civilization a few hundred years after I'm dead, it's not exactly any skin off my nose, is it? :p
He said, enjoying the fruits of thousands of years of forethought and cooperative labor to bring him both leisure and an easy life!
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I'm not implying that we shouldn't work to make our future a better place, since that's good for everyone. It's just that there are a few whackjobs out there who take that sentiment and run with it to an extreme level, viewing it as imperative that humankind spread itself amongst the stars just for the sake of keeping our "seed" growing. I mean...every species goes extinct eventually. Our fossil record is full of billions of years of examples. I think there's a lot more worth in coming to terms that this will apply to us as well someday than in sticking one's fingers in one's ears and concocting "myths of humanity everlasting," so to speak.
Now what any of this has to do with antimatter, I have no idea. :p
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But I want to last as least as long as the dinosaurs as a general grouping of species!
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I guess it would be sweet to get mounted in a museum 70 million years from now.
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I'm not implying that we shouldn't work to make our future a better place, since that's good for everyone. It's just that there are a few whackjobs out there who take that sentiment and run with it to an extreme level, viewing it as imperative that humankind spread itself amongst the stars just for the sake of keeping our "seed" growing. I mean...every species goes extinct eventually. Our fossil record is full of billions of years of examples. I think there's a lot more worth in coming to terms that this will apply to us as well someday than in sticking one's fingers in one's ears and concocting "myths of humanity everlasting," so to speak.
Now what any of this has to do with antimatter, I have no idea. :p
yeah, and the ones who lack a strong desire to reproduce and spread tend to go extinct at a vastly faster rate than those who don't have such a deficency.
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im actually surprised we haven't replaced nukes with ke weapons yet. you just need some satellites i high orbits to toss massive tungsten spikes at the target cities of the world. no warheads, just pure velocity, and only costs a heavy lift launch vehicle or 50. rods from god would take a cold war budget to install right now, and would require colonization of local space and asteroid mining to replace nukes. antimatter does pack some impressive energy density, the trouble of creating it and containing it would restrict its uses. there are much much more cheap and efficient ways to destroy stuff. im sure it might be useful as an anti-planet weapon.
consider the history of nuclear weapons. back in the 50s and 60s we had warheads in the megatons, these were common. but these have been replaced with warheads of a few kilotons. we have come to the conclusion that we no longer need a doomsday arsenal to provide an adequate nuclear deterrent. so we have scaled back our armament to levels where we can still cause critical damage to an enemy, but do it without crippling the whole planet in the process. our planet locked civilization has reached the maximum limit of sane firepower. the physical size of our civilization would need to expand a lot before we can justify creating bigger death machines. when that time comes, perhaps we can call on antimatter to make bigger warheads, and i can wank to the test detonation footage.
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Problem is, orbital KE weapons are expensive. Launching the weapon and the munitions is waaaaaay more expensive than dropping bombs the conventional way (Never forget that weapons need to be serviced, which means sending people up there to do it). Conventionally delivered weapons are rather user-friendly that way.
Then there's the matter of accuracy. Sure, you could build a city buster that way, but seriously? That's soooo Cold War.
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Problem is, orbital KE weapons are expensive. Launching the weapon and the munitions is waaaaaay more expensive than dropping bombs the conventional way (Never forget that weapons need to be serviced, which means sending people up there to do it). Conventionally delivered weapons are rather user-friendly that way.
Then there's the matter of accuracy. Sure, you could build a city buster that way, but seriously? That's soooo Cold War.
there's really no point to that if you read my second paragraph. but the potential of ke weapons could far exceed nukes. if our civilization ever have a major presence in space (were talking colonization level here with sovereign nations off planet), ke weapons would quickly render nukes obsolete. ke weapons also have the side effect of being less destructive in the long term, with no radiation to speak of. still i doubt very many wars would need to deploy wmds, and the ones we have provide a suitable deterrent.
also ke weapons may be expensive, but the concept is based of tried and true technology that anyone with physics phd and some engineering talent could design, and can be made with off the shelf materials that are readily available. your just releasing a projectile, firing a small de-orbit burn, and letting the laws of physics do the work. the firing solution could be done on paper.
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one other interesting aspect of anti-matter is that unlike nukes it has no minimum mass needed, so you could have anti-matter weapons at any power level you wanted, and if they are small yields the bomb could theoretically be ittybitty.
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Only as itty-bitty as you could make the containment hardware and AFAIK, there's a minimum size that a magnet with that kind of power can be. Course, I'm a redneck from Alabama, what do I know.
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Only as itty-bitty as you could make the containment hardware and AFAIK, there's a minimum size that a magnet with that kind of power can be. Course, I'm a redneck from Alabama, what do I know.
I think you're right, actually, except that you need even more than a magnet for anything bigger than say antiproton - assuming it's uncharged you need to contain on the magnetic moment instead of the charge, and that's really hard.
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With shoulder-launched mini-nukes, we don't need small-scale anti-matter weaponry.
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With shoulder-launched mini-nukes, we don't need small-scale anti-matter weaponry.
Well if the containment stuff was cooperative, you could fit a weapon of the same yield into a pinhead, or an implant in a person's eye, or anywhere. More impressively, though, you could use it as a low-mass high-yield propellant on interstellar ships, where the problem of fuel expenditure scaling with fuel reserves is a huge engineering challenge.
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[brainstorm]I'm curious as to what sort of antimatter would be most effective if the goal was to make a weapon. A container of antiprotons? Positrons? Full on anti-atoms like anti-hydrogen? Surely elementary particles would be easier to both produce and to confine, and I'd imagine antiprotons would give off the most energy since they are more massive, but I just don't know. I also wonder how effectively antiprotons would annihilate with regular matter -- how do they react in the first place when the protons they have to react with are held within atomic nuclei?
[/brainstorm]
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If they manage to get energy from the Antimatter, then I'd think a possible use would be man-portable laser-type weapon.
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[brainstorm]I'm curious as to what sort of antimatter would be most effective if the goal was to make a weapon. A container of antiprotons? Positrons? Full on anti-atoms like anti-hydrogen? Surely elementary particles would be easier to both produce and to confine, and I'd imagine antiprotons would give off the most energy since they are more massive, but I just don't know. I also wonder how effectively antiprotons would annihilate with regular matter -- how do they react in the first place when the protons they have to react with are held within atomic nuclei?
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Well let's reason this out. If you react a raw anti-proton with, say, a helium atom, then the left over is a neutron and an electron. Do that on a large scale and you have a crapton of free neutrons being blasted away from the reaction at relatavistic speed. That ain't healthy for anyone in range.
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[brainstorm]I'm curious as to what sort of antimatter would be most effective if the goal was to make a weapon. A container of antiprotons? Positrons? Full on anti-atoms like anti-hydrogen? Surely elementary particles would be easier to both produce and to confine, and I'd imagine antiprotons would give off the most energy since they are more massive, but I just don't know. I also wonder how effectively antiprotons would annihilate with regular matter -- how do they react in the first place when the protons they have to react with are held within atomic nuclei?
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You need a particle of the opposite type for mutual annihilation, so anti-hydrogen's not going to be much good unless the guy's holding a balloon. I would think elementary particles are better for this reason.
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[brainstorm]I'm curious as to what sort of antimatter would be most effective if the goal was to make a weapon. A container of antiprotons? Positrons? Full on anti-atoms like anti-hydrogen? Surely elementary particles would be easier to both produce and to confine, and I'd imagine antiprotons would give off the most energy since they are more massive, but I just don't know. I also wonder how effectively antiprotons would annihilate with regular matter -- how do they react in the first place when the protons they have to react with are held within atomic nuclei?
[/brainstorm]
You need a particle of the opposite type for mutual annihilation, so anti-hydrogen's not going to be much good unless the guy's holding a balloon. I would think elementary particles are better for this reason.
But why would that be? Every other element contains both protons and electrons, too. The only difference is the number of protons/electrons available and the number of neutrons in the way. I understand what matter/antimatter annihilation is but I'm wondering how exactly it would take place on the atomic level. i.e, with more than just a two-particle interaction.
The way I'd imagine it in the case of H and anti-H would be that the "electron" shells annihilate first, and then a fraction of a second later the nuclei, having equal but opposite charges, rush together and complete the annihilation of both atoms. But what would happen if, say, an anti-Helium atom meets an Oxygen atom? Does nothing occur? Do only the shells annihilate? Does the anti-helium annihilate the equivalent of a helium within the Oxygen atom, leaving behind Carbon? (heh)
Edit: fixed bad writing on my part -- I'm tired. D:
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[brainstorm]I'm curious as to what sort of antimatter would be most effective if the goal was to make a weapon. A container of antiprotons? Positrons? Full on anti-atoms like anti-hydrogen? Surely elementary particles would be easier to both produce and to confine, and I'd imagine antiprotons would give off the most energy since they are more massive, but I just don't know. I also wonder how effectively antiprotons would annihilate with regular matter -- how do they react in the first place when the protons they have to react with are held within atomic nuclei?
[/brainstorm]
You need a particle of the opposite type for mutual annihilation, so anti-hydrogen's not going to be much good unless the guy's holding a balloon. I would think elementary particles are better for this reason.
But why would that be? Every other element contains protons, too. The only difference is the number of protons available and the number of electrons and neutrons in the way. I understand what matter/antimatter annihilation is but I'm wondering how exactly it would take place on the atomic level. i.e, with more than just a two-particle interaction.
Given that PET scans generate minute quantities of antimatter you'd better hope it stays that way.