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Antimatter and Antistars?
payndz asks: "I'm currently writing an SF novel, and came up with a weird thought for a piece of background flavour that, if there's any scientific basis for it, might get expanded into a larger element. The most up-to-date theories for the creation of the universe 13.7 billion years ago (give or take...) suggest that at the Big Bang, matter *and* antimatter were created. Over time, the fact that there was slightly more matter than antimatter means that mutual annihilation has left a universe of matter. (I'm not going to open up the whole can of 'dark matter' worms, unless somebody wants to...). I have a 'what if' question, which since Hubert Farnsworth isn't around I thought would get some good responses here: what if, rather than antimatter being annihilated by matter in the universe at large, there are 'clumps' of both matter and antimatter making up the universe? Since our clump is almost entirely matter, billions of LY away could there be galaxies made up of antimatter?More to the point, what physical properties would these galaxies have? Would a star made of antimatter function in the same way as a matter star, and would its emissions be made of antiparticles? Can you have anti-photons, and if you could, what impact would they have on any matter they illuminated? Could life evolve in an antimatter environment?"
Since you are writing fiction, it doesn't really matter whether it's real at all or not. All real physics are only just theory, so anything you can dream of should be possible in your fantasies!
Larry Niven had this great short story where Elephant looks for the most unusual piece of real estate in the known space... nicknamed "Cannonball", it is a solar system zooming *very fast* through our galaxy. While that is unusual by itself, it isn't the *most* unusual thing about it, as you can guess.
:-)
Luckily for him his pilot is a coward, so they don't land
Seriously, the existrance of large amount of anti matter (whole galaxies of it) isn't _that_ far fetched. Consider that the original big-bang universe is made out of hot plasma. A blob of matter pressed against a blob of anti matter will create a terribly violent reaction in the interface zone; this would act as a "wall" repelling both matter and anti-matter away from it, preserving them as seperate regions. Also, any electrical current flowing through the plasma will tend to separate matter and anti-matter. Given the whole universe is expanding madly in the duration it is possible that ant-matter "islands" survived.
AFAIK (IANAP) anti-matter galaxies/stars would be indistinguishible from normal-matter ones. Photons don;t care whether they are created by matter fusion or anti-matter fusion, etc.
It has been done before, about a million times in one form or another. Somhow this article triggered some Startrek flashback...
A problem cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created it.
There's a Larry Niven short story called Flatlander which deals with the concept of antimatter stellar objects - only briefly, but it's worth a read.
Also, wander up to your nearest university and look up the astro-physics department. Chances are there'll be a couple of knowledgable types in there who could point you in the right direction.
|>
Here be Dragons
"Since our clump is almost entirely matter, billions of LY away could there be galaxies made up of antimatter?More to the point, what physical properties would these galaxies have?"
One thing is for sure. There would be a person identical to you except they would have a goatee and no sleeves on their uniform.
First of all, there's basically no difference between a galaxy (or a physical body) made of matter and antimatter... Actually you wouldn't be able to tell. The major physical difference is the charge of particles (e.g. anti-electrons, or positrons, have +ve charge) but of course you wouldn't be able to tell since you would call +ve charge -ve and vice versa.
Secondly, according to the theories you mentioned, there's basically very little chance that large lumps of antimatter were formed during the big bang, since most of the annihilation would have taken place at a stage when all the matter was condended in a very small place, and therefore the distribution of antimatter would be quite uniform (so you wouldn't have a galaxy of am here and one of normal matter there).
Thirdly, there are no antiphotons. Photons are the antiparticles of themselves!
Hope it helps!
My Stack Overflow user
gimme some of whatever ur smokin. please
i haven't add any thoughts that mind provoking for a LONG time.
Yeah, i've noticed that kind of beaviour in a scientist. "If I can't see it, it's not there" . Well, a lot o theories are based on this simple fact, and i think that it is wrong. It's basically, like the premise that the universe is expanding. I don't know if this is true. It is expanding for us. Every year the universe is bigger with a light year. But i think is normal. But it doesn't mean that it really expands. Only we *think* it does. I think scientist could get over the facts that you see, and the facts that can be, only need to be proven to be out there.
there is so such thing as an anti-photon...photons are their own anti-particle. An antimatter star would emit regular photons. Sorry dude.
In this fundamental physics book, Feynman describes all of the states of physical matter and the laws of symmetry that go along with them. When discussing the right and left-handed rules, he asks the obvious question of whether they are arbitrarily chosen; whether right-handed means anything other than in opposition to left-handed. He asks this to spur our interest in discovering the basis for the symmetry of physical laws.
To illustrate, he imagines a conversation between a human and a distant alien, the purpose of which is for the human to communicate to the alien, after describing the human body and anything else of import, which hand is the left and which is the right, in order to know on which side to place the human heart. After dismissing a few possible physical phenomena by which this information could be conveyed, Feynman describes an instance (during a weak decay of a cobalt nucleus) in which the emitted electron always has a left angular momentum. This, he says, can be used to indicate to our alien friend which is left and which is right. Hold onto that for a second...
In the next section, he describes antimatter. He first theorizes that, other than annhilating each other on contact, objects made entirely of antimatter would not be noticeably different from those made of matter: It is one of the principles of the symmetry of physics, the equations seem to show, that if a clock, say, were made of matter on one hand, and then we made the same clock of antimatter, it would run in this (exact same) way. He then adds the example of the left-handed beta decay above by constructing a theoretical antimatter clock made of cobalt nuclei. He speculates that since left and right-handed matter clocks could be constructed to behave differently, thus violating the law of mirror symmetry, that antimatter clocks would also behave dissimilarly depending upon their handedness.
He goes through all of that to simply tell us that a left-handed matter clock is equivalent in every way to a right-handed antimatter clock. Unfortunately for sci-fi novelists, changing matter to antimatter merely alters the handedness of the particles, rather than actually violating symmetry or having any other noticeable effect. Of course, his lectures are no longer cutting-edge and the book only gives a laymans description of the underlying physics, but it doesn't look too good.
Feynman ends up concluding:
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Photons are their own anti-particles, so yes and no, there are anti-photons, photons.
-- Paul Tötterman ( I would have logged in, but I'm at work)
Which ignorant asshole modded him up? He doesn't have a clue what he's on about. Anti-photons *are* photons.
I am fucked up and that was quite the idea for a book. I consider it quite entertaining.
The equations that describe matter and anti-matter have identical solutions for the case of photons, meaning that anti-photons and photons are the exact same thing. This is logical since if they were not then what would photons and anti-photons react to create?
we don't see anti-matter photons hitting our telescopes, therefore anti-matter stars do no exist...
I'm pretty sure that a photon from a matter-antimatter reaction is the same as a regular photon, and that gamma radiation from said reaction is just regular gamma radiation also, not "anti-gamma". Therefore, I don't think anti-hydrogen fusion is going to be that different from regular hydrogen fusion. I don't think you would be able to tell the difference between a matter and an antimatter star just by looking at it, you'd have to get close enough (or observe something made of matter that got close enough) to get caught in its solar wind (anti-hydrogen is definitely different from regular hydrogen, see).
I recall reading somewhere that animatter is what matter would be but traveling the oposite direction in time. Hell, what do I know? I count boxes for a living.
Someone hates these cans.
... is that it is indistinguishable from normal matter. The interesting thing is when matter and antimatter particles interact (come into contact with each other). They are both annihilated, leaving behind a ball of energy according to Einstein's E = m * c^2 equation.
:)
So if you meet your antimatter-self, don't shake hands with him! The only thing that would be left is a giant crater in the ground.
Maybe that could be the plot for a sci-fi novel, a world full of matter and antimatter people carefully avoiding each other
Seriously, some recent Ask Slashdot's have been ridiculous - doesn't anyone know how to use Google, etc anymore?
This one takes the biscuit though. You're a writer (or want to be) - at the very least you should be able to do your own research for your work!
Posting an Ask Slashdot is a very bad idea, for at least two reasons:
1. There's no way you can easily distinguish between accurate and inaccurate statements.
Just because something quotes a scientist or it's been modded up it doesn't make it any more reliable then anything else.
2. You leave yourself open to litigation.
George Lucas makes a point of not looking at Star Wars fan fiction because he doesn't want to leave himself vulnerable to the guy who'll scream "Hey, you stole that scene/character/whatever in Episode III from my story!". You might not have billions to lose but by canvassing for information and ideas so publicly you're still leaving yourself wide open to that sort of allegation.
You might think that Slashdot is an open forum, populated by open source advocates who would all be opposed to intellectual property litigation and would do nothing more than help out and wish you luck but it'll only take one asshole to prove you wrong.
Someone's bound to mod this down as flamebait or as a troll but if you're going to be an author then you can't afford to ignore this stuff.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
firstly (obviously) all particles would be exchanged for antiparticles. That means that in the star, anti-protons would fuse to anti-helium releasing electron-neutrinos (as opposed to our sun releasing anti-electron-neutrinos)
...)
[this is an effect of the weak interaction]
note also: a poton is it's own antiparticle, this the stars would shine just like ours do.
gravity wise you wouldn't be able to tell the difference either. paricles and anti-particles have the same gravitational mass...
I'm sorry but I don't think an anti-matter setting for your book would be particularly interesting or exotic...
perhaps if there are sentient (anti)beings who realise that they are overpowered by matter and live in constant fear of being anhilated *grin*
(...makes more for dark kind of scifi
anyway,
good luck
AntiNeutrino
I can't even remember what it was I came here to get away from - Bob Dylan
Just don't put the pasta near the anti pasta. That could be bad.
/rimshot
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
The anti particle of a Photon is a photon. However if you had an anti-mater star, it would probably be blindingly obvious. Stars emit photons, but they also blow off a stellar wind of other particles (electrons, protons etc) If it was an anti star as soon as this stuff hit the intersteller media (that loose collection of hydrogen and other stuff between the stars) it would react in a stream of gamma rays around the star.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
it doesn't REALLY matter if theres some sillyness from physics point of view(hyperjump is one) as far as the book tells a good story and is intresting otherwise, has good flow of text and other things that make a book a great book. keep the sillyness logical and constant though, _DON'T_ fall into explaining every little tidbit how it works and how it is possible unless it's essential from viewpoint of some character in the book(or similar).
most great scifi books/ short novels could have been just as easily setted in non typical scifi setting(heinleins starship troopers could be set without much fuss into ancient greek), bad scifi is where the 'scifi' is used just to cover up something else, like the lack of plot or bad writing. though, one can use the story to tell of a world to come and it can work pretty well, and predict possibilities of technology, but without good storytelling these are just academical papers on possible future.
and most things that apply to scifi apply to fantasy too, mostly because underneath they are pretty much the same for most authors, it doesn't really matter if the lockpick is a complicated electronic hacker gadget or a spell, or if you use a robot instead of a demigod as an ageless being watching over humanity for thousands of years.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
There are a few differences between an antimatter galaxy and a matter galaxy like our own. For instance, in an antimatter galaxy, the element Antimony is called "Mony". They use it as a means of facilitating the exchange of goods and services. Also, in antimatter England, they drive on the right side of the road.
Observation of annihilation gamma rays places strong constraints on the amount of antimatter in the universe. For example, we can confidently say that most of this galaxy is normal matter. Were this not the case, annihilation of matter and antimatter gas in interstellar space would produce too much annihilation radiation at 511 keV (electron/positron annihilation) and at ~100 MeV (photons from neutral pion decay.)
IIRC, the smallest scale at which antimatter can dominate is galactic superclusters, but even that may now be ruled out.
Get a anti-telescope and you will see it. ....Mmmm, that would be a good story....Anti-Telescope, Nude woman, $$$
Those work great also to see under the clothes.
I should write a sc-f book about this
Karma: Very Very Very Very Bad
See, empty space isn't really empty. There's Hydrogen out there. There would be an amazing light show at the border. The constant meeting of matter and anti-matter (space dust, if you will, emitted by both galaxies) would most likely be very visible. Matter/anti-matter reactions are very energetic, far more so than fusion, even.
The only way to have anti-matter galaxies in your universe is if they were more than 13.7 billion light years distant, so the light from the interface hasn't reached us yet. Or maybe there could be a single anti-matter galaxy somewhere out there, discovered by the weird light reaching us from that corner of the universe. I doubt our telescopes have looked everywhere, yet.
Aside from all that, science is just a hook. As long as you're internally consistent, it doesn't matter if your science is far-fetched. Plot, characters, story. Interesting things happening to interesting people will be what sell books. I probably didn't need to tell you that. I still read a lot of old sci-fi that has bad science in it. 'Lensmen', Heinlein juveniles like 'Tunnel in the Sky', 'Citizen of the Galaxy', and 'Starman Jones', Campbell's 'Arcot, Morey, and Wade' stories. Love that stuff.
In Anvil of Stars, Bear introduces a civilization so advanced that they could manipulate vast ammounts of matter over large distances and convert M objects to A-M. Including people. The human's who were converted to A-M died slowly because their organic chemistry was subtly different. Made for a nasty suprise when the pilots tried to re-dock with their mother ship.
Not that this represents anything based in reality or the laws of physics. Just "prior art" from a respected hard sci-fi writer.
meh.
The Weak Beta Decay can be used to determine the handedness of the galaxy, as described above.
However, there is a further interesting twist. It seems that theoretically it is possible to have alternate universes based on mirror symmetry. In this theory there are both ordinary and mirror particles (not to be confused with anti-particles). For example, even the photon would have a mirror particle.
Ordinary and mirror particles would interact only via gravity. This would explain the "missing mass" problem of "dark matter".
There is even a web page dedicated to this: http://www.geocities.com/mirrorplanets/
The main proponent seems to be R. Foot at the University of Melbourne.
I'm sure you can get some ideas for an SF novel from this!
H. Sandin
(theoretical physicist)
Matter vs. Anti-Matter
in this anti-galaxy, would there be anti-comedians? Would everyone's boss be an anti-asshole? I'm getting dizzy...
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
First, let me say IANAP. I'm also basically brainstorming; if this, then maybe that.
:)
So... what is antimatter? It's matter whose particles have an opposite charge from the particles we know as matter. A matter proton has a positive charge. An antimatter proton (negaton?) has a negative charge. A matter electron has a negative charge. An antimatter positron has a positive charge.
What would antimatter be like?
The first thing I can think of is that antimatter electricity (positricity?) will flow in the opposite direction. All things that depend upon the charge of electricity, for example, say, magnetic attraction, will be reversed. Matter north would attract antimatter north, and repel antimatter south, and vice-versa.
Also, electromagnetism would be reversed. With matter, magnetic fields generated by an electric current follow the left-hand rule. Magnetic fields generated by a positric current would follow the right-hand rule.
Here's something to think about that follows: light emitted by antimatter, because the electric and magnetic fields are generated in reverse, would be inverted in frequency/wavelength.
hmm....
Would antimatter tend to absorb high-frequency light (uber-ultra-violet) and permit low-frequency (infrared) to pass through, rather than the reverse with matter? That would mess up traditional scanning techniques... X-rays would warm an anti-matter person up, while IR light would act like an X-ray....
Oh, and viewing antimatter would be like the ultimate acid trip. Colors would be fucked up indeed. Normal antimatter stars would probably be the same, since they tend to emit light in all wavelengths, but the interactions of matter with the light would be fucked. Light-loving plants would be red rather than green. The good guys would wear black, not white.
That'd be something fun to write about in your book.
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
WE are the antimatter...
\m/
"Geometry, Relativity, and the Fourth Dimension," one possibility is that antimatter galaxies would appear to run backwards in time. Of course, to them, we'd appear as if we were running backwards in time. I'm sure you can build some neat ideas off of this.
In my upper-division cosmology classes I recall having a dicussion about this very question. It wen something like this (If my brain doesn't fail me):
Astrophysicists had seriously toyed with the question of wether other galaxies were anti-matter. Indeed, based off of EM radiation (light), there would be no way to tell, since matter and anti-matter both emit light.
Also, if the matter between them never interacted, there would be no way to tell, as matter and anti-matter are indistinguishable when completely segregated.
However, there are good reasons to believe that all of the matter is normal matter (well, meaning that a negligably small amount of anti-matter is still present): Collisions between galaxies and their particles happen all the time. Indeed, even the outter extent of our galaxy is meshing slightly with Andromeda (2 million light years away). With all these collisions, one would expect that if any of these galaxies were made of anti-matter, that a reaction would occur and emmit a *lot* of high energy (which would have a signature that we could deduce from spectroscopy). But we simply don't see this occuring.
Also, ass mentioned before in this thread, stars emit interstellar particles in the solar wind. This argument turns out to be the weaker argument, as usually stars are contained in their own galaxies, and each galaxy is probably either all matter or all anti-matter. However, this argument is a good explination of *why* each galaxy would only be either matter or anti-matter.
Why doesn't anyone consider 'Ask Slashdot' to be reasearch?
Seems like you're the only one around here crufty enough to think it isn't. Most people have been giving lucid, well-thought out responses. Then there's the "I don't like this question, so I'll bitch" troll. Come on, whine a little more about ask slashdot! You can do it!
Wow are there a lot of whiney people on slashdot.
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
Antimatter and Antistars?
What do you have against matter and stars, annyway?
What you quoted is the parity conservation. However, if you take charge into the consideration, there is a way to correctly tell a distant alien the concept of "left" and "right."
CP (charge & parity) is violated.
So you're saying Billy Idol, to say nothing of Tommy James and the Shondells, were just a bunch of greedy aliens from this other galaxy?
Oh, right. Roswell 1947, shortly before the popularity of rock 'n' roll... and the rise of RIAA to world dominance. It all makes sense now.
As for Point Two ... unless 1) somebody posts detailed plot, story, or character information here, 2) you are dumb enough to include it in your book, and 3) your book is lucky enough to make it into print after you include unsolicited fan fiction in it, you should be fine. The SF writing community trades research all the time; you can see it in action over on the SFF.net or Speculations research topics.
The anti-particle of a photon is a photon.
You mean anti-stars, like Celine Dione?
puts ("Python r0cks\n");
You might check out Nobel Laureate (Physics 1970) Hannes Alfvén's speculations on the matter (or antimatter). Particularly "Worlds-Antiworlds: Antimatter in Cosmology" where he supposed that matter and antimatter stars coexisted with boundary layers of plasma between them. In fact he had a running bet that Alpha Centari was made of antimatter (I once had lunch with him and heard this first person). :
To quote http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/alfven.htm
"Some of Hannes Alfvén's ideas are still controversial. One example is his idea that the universe consists of equal amounts of matter and antimatter separated by thin boundary layers"
- There is no such thing as an anti-photon, since there photons do not carry charge (also, there is no such thing as an anti-neutron).
- Anti-particles still have positive mass, so there's no such thing (at least from anti-matter) as anti-gravity (or, for that matter, anti-Catholicism).
- An anti-matter galaxy would behave exactly like a regular matter galaxy, you'd just never be able to go there without exploding in a huge puff of pure energy.
If science fiction is based on real science and then extends into the unknown, it's a lot better, because you aren't reading along and suddenly think, that's wrong.Good Luck!
This side up.
George Lucas makes a point of not looking at Star Wars fan fiction because he doesn't want to leave himself vulnerable to the guy who'll scream "Hey, you stole that scene/character/whatever in Episode III from my story!".
As much as I hate fan fiction, somehow I feel like that would make for a much better Episode III.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Anyway, info in parent is correct while grantparent is incorrect. Antimatter is almost but not really "just" matter with a different charge.
My favorite of all the silliness is their "Heisenburg compensator" device :)
I think it's a fine idea for people to solicit ideas on slashdot. It is an open forum, and many of the popular posts express sympathy for the free expression of ideas.
I wish more people would do so. I don't look forward to a society where everyone is afraid to ask questions in public for fear of being sued.
It's obvious you've never read any of the "expanded" Star wars universe books. If you did, you'd already know that the dark side of the force is fueled by "every living thing made of anti-matter."
Dumbass!
Sarcasm impaired people please note that this was intended to be a bad joke.
The only other option that I can see is that people are playing some fun games with the age/size/etc. of the universe...
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
Maybe I'm showing my age here, but anyone who remembers DC Comic's Crisis on Infinite Earths from the 80s knows that the primary difference between regular matter and anti-matter universes is that the anti-matter universe is EVIL!!!
Check out Robert Forward's "Time Master" for an interesting read on Negative Matter. (Not the same as Anti-matter.) It has repulsive instead of attractive gravity, it annihilates itself with matter producing zero energy and a bunch of other cool properties. And aparently, there is strong theoretical evidence that it might exist too.
That's right...they're just shells showing the boundary between the 'matter' and 'anti-matter' universes.
:p
Then, suddenly, OUR Sun starts spitting out what at first appear to be solar flares, but are really probes from the anti-matter galaxy within taking readings and exploring our planet and galaxy.
MUAHAHHAHA
And then the hero dies and...oh wait, that's some other book review giving away the ending.
antimatter isn't magic, it's just opposite - a negative chanrged nucleus with positrons orbitting about it.
a brief consideration of these 2 facts should make it obvious that if matter can form compounds and aggregate, then antimatter can do the same.
"First of all, there's basically no difference between a galaxy (or a physical body) made of matter and antimatter... Actually you wouldn't be able to tell." You may be familiar with the "right hand rule" which defines the direction of many physical interactions that are mathematically described by a cross-product. Antiparticles should behave oppositely, following an anti-right hand rule. A favorite quote from my professor at Drake. "If you go to shake hands with an alien and he reaches out with his left, DON'T TOUCH HIM! ... He's antimatter."
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
for what reason do you conisder it to be? count the number of clueless and irrelevant answer to the original post and look at the ratio to ones that aren't - doesn't look like a resource you'd want to use.
I wonder what would happen if a anti-blackhole collided with a normal blackhole. Would they eat eachother up instantly, or blow up? Would the bigger blackhole simply become that much less massive? Or what about dark-matter coming in contact with anti-matter, is that even possible?
It isn't a lie if you belive it.
How do I mod you unfunny?
... it has been thought of before.
;-)
t im atter/everyday/AM-everyday03.html
OK, I admit it... I WANTED to burst your bubble!
http://livefromcern.web.cern.ch/livefromcern/an
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
If you did, you'd already know that the dark side of the force is fueled by "every living thing made of anti-matter."
I'm sorry... don't you mean "anti-midichlorians?"
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
We know that there aren't antimatter stars because we'd be seeing huge antimatter and matter phase out reactions. If an antistar hit a regular start the energy released would be amazingly huge. Thus we can safely 1580that this is not happening.
NJ Local Music Scene
Nothing like losing your air supply to get your attention.
Spock continued, "Annihilation, Jim. Total, complete, absolute annihilation." "Of everything, everywhere." Kirk clenched his jaw.
If you want to spice up your story, postulate that these boundaries are *extremely* thin. Then go to your library and look up the physics of the "Leidenfrost layer". As originally researched, this has nothing to do with antimatter physics, but it presents an interesting what-if on how masses of M and A-M might exist in very close proximity in a semi-stable configuation. The big question is how long such a configuration can last. This allows for some dramatic tension in your story...especially if we're talking about galactic masses of M and A-M.
Can't stop the Beta? Time to evacuate to ##altslashdot at webchat.freenode.net - Slashcott in effect.
I'm not up on the physics, but I think that the fact that our universe is made of mostly matter implies that there must have been some asymmetry in the early period after the big bang. This has been discovered: see/ 20020 723/sine2b.html
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/slac/media-info
So maybe if you looked hard enough at the light from an anti-galaxy you could tell the difference - some miniscule difference in the emission spectrum or something.
If I'm not mistaken, only particles with mass can have an "anti" version. It may even be only particles with charge, but I wouldn't swear to it.
Your story has got me thinking. It is suspected that gamma ray bursts may be caused by the merger of two blackholes. A large gamma ray burst is so energetic that it can emit more energy for a few milliseconds than every other radiant object in the universe combined. But what would happen if a blackhole merged with an anti-blackhole? There would still be the huge outpouring of energy because this is evidently due to effects manifested outside the event horizon. However, what happens after the matter and the anti-matter come into contact inside the event horizon? Normally the two opposing forms of matter would annihilate each other and become pure energy. But energy does not possess the property of mass, so could two equal sized holes wink out of existence in a bigbang-like explosion?
I still can't understand how whining like yours gets modded up as an "insightful" answer to a question... Why are you responding with a non-answer? Just like to hear/see yourself whine and bitch? You must be a hoot at parties...
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
If instead of one big bang, in this universe, there were several, 100 billion light years apart. The universes would each cease to exist before they could detect each other...
This is my sig.
Can you please email me some information on how to get a bigger penis? I never seem to get any information on this terribly important topic.
You would be killed by a massive burst of croutons.
Why only think in 3D, why only lightyears away?
There are very valid arguments for more that 4D space(high, deep, wide, time)
Just because we only perceive 4 dimensions, does not mean there are no other unseen dimensions.
(this would explain "curved space" and wormholes better)
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
It doesn't matter! Or in other words: antimatter.
Larry Niven already wrote a story about an anti-matter Star.
"Flatlander, by L. Niven (in the short story collection " Neutron Star", 1967). Astronauts investigate an antimatter object at the very edge of known space, with a lot of real physics throw in "
20/20 hindsight? get real - the ratio is more or less the same on most of ask slashdot. It might serve as a resource from which you pick up things
to reserch, but it is not on itself a credible source.