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Post by A Reasonable Rat on Jun 21, 2011 21:40:32 GMT -5
There's something I've always wondered (and Google hasn't helped me with this for the usual reason.) I've read over and over that if a particle of antimatter meets a particle of antimatter, they'll destroy each other. And if 1 gram meets 1 gram, same thing. And if 1 kilogram meets 1 kilogram, etc... But what happens if 1 particle meets 1 kilogram? What's the result if the two masses are vastly different? (My mom thinks it'd result in a chain reaction collapse of the larger mass, but surely antimatter particles have collided with the Earth?)
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Post by Tiberius on Jun 21, 2011 22:41:34 GMT -5
Then the one antiparticle will annihilate one particle.
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Post by Oriet on Jun 21, 2011 23:06:34 GMT -5
There will be no chain reaction. The smaller mass will simply annihilate an equal amount of the larger mass, though the resulting release of energy is likely to send the rest of the larger mass flying in an explosion, as the released energy has to go somewhere.
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Post by Napoleon the Clown on Jun 22, 2011 1:38:11 GMT -5
Where's Montgomery Scott when you really need him? Sadly, he took a journey beyond the true final frontier, about six years ago. My second time seeing Kitty's comment made me think "The ocean." I'm a terrible human being. As to what would happen if one gram of anti-matter came into contact with one kilogram of regular matter, the anti-matter would annihilate, as would one gram of regular matter. You'd still have 999 grams of regular matter kicking around, though as Oriet said it may get scattered. Minute quantities of anti-matter are created by lightning, in fact. Yay for ultra-sensitive equipment going "Dude... There's flashes of gamma-rays in that thunderstorm!" (Anti-matter/matter reactions primarily release the energy in the form of gamma-rays) Far as I can tell, the Earth is still around, so your mom's theory is wrong.
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Post by A Reasonable Rat on Jun 22, 2011 21:14:09 GMT -5
Yeah that's more or less what I thought. So... The idea was mentioned on that link that the reason we don't see much antimatter is because when the universe was forming, mutual annihilation resulted in patches of only-matter or only-antimatter (barring the occasional stray particle) that are bazillions of light years apart, and so the one cannot be observed from the other.
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Post by MaybeNever on Jun 22, 2011 21:42:38 GMT -5
It isn't clear that primordial antimatter even exists in the universe anymore, and that new stuff has to be created. By lightning, apparently, because holy shit.
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Post by Napoleon the Clown on Jun 23, 2011 0:18:03 GMT -5
The point of trapping anti-matter for prolonged periods is to see how it behaves compared to matter as we know it. It may well behave differently from the matter we're familiar with, which could cause all kinds of interesting things. It's certainly possible that there are entire galaxies made of anti-matter and we just don't know because we've never seen any indication that they're made of anything other than what we're made of.
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Post by wmdkitty on Jun 23, 2011 1:55:41 GMT -5
Considering the amount of energy released when antimatter hits matter... is there any reason (aside from current financial constraints, obvs) that we can't turn this into some kind of power source?
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Post by Vene on Jun 23, 2011 9:24:04 GMT -5
Considering the amount of energy released when antimatter hits matter... is there any reason (aside from current financial constraints, obvs) that we can't turn this into some kind of power source? No good way to store it long term, also, entropy. Entropy is a bitch.
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Post by cagnazzo on Jun 23, 2011 10:24:34 GMT -5
Considering the amount of energy released when antimatter hits matter... is there any reason (aside from current financial constraints, obvs) that we can't turn this into some kind of power source? No good way to store it long term, also, entropy. Entropy is a bitch. There's also no real way to get it. Using it as a power source (as opposed to a battery) is like using solar power to heat a furnace, which you use to make steam which powers a turbine. It's incredibly inefficient and you end up with less useful energy than you started with. Which... is entropy, so never mind.
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Post by Napoleon the Clown on Jun 24, 2011 0:36:05 GMT -5
Considering the amount of energy released when antimatter hits matter... is there any reason (aside from current financial constraints, obvs) that we can't turn this into some kind of power source? Because making the stuff is a bitch and a half and storing it for prolonged periods is a cunt and three quarters. There ends up being a net energy loss simply because it takes so much effort to create just a few particles of anti-matter. Also, gamma-rays aren't terribly good at power generation. They're damn good at penetration.
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Post by Oriet on Jun 24, 2011 1:06:30 GMT -5
Yes, entropy, the thing that makes it so you can never get more energy out of a system than was put into it (or even get the same you put in). As such, it takes more energy to create, and contain, anti-matter than you get out of it, which is still a tremendous amount of energy.
Star Trek is able to get away with anti-matter being a fuel source because it's highly compact, but they still use more energy to create it, which is why they don't use it for space stations, cities, and other such facilities. Even then they still have auxiliary fusion generators for most systems as it's more efficient (that, and they sometimes have to eject the warp core).
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Post by Amaranth on Jun 24, 2011 17:44:49 GMT -5
Also, gamma-rays aren't terribly good at power generation. They're damn good at penetration. DIRTY.
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Post by Napoleon the Clown on Jun 25, 2011 2:08:04 GMT -5
I was wondering how quick someone would notice that.
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Post by lighthorseman on Jun 25, 2011 6:20:47 GMT -5
Its all gonna end in tears. You watch. Some fucking albino monk will steal it and use it to blow up the Vatican, and Forrest Gump will have to rescue the Pope from Obi Wan Kenobi.
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