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Antimatter Molecule Should Boost Laser Power
Laser Lover writes "Molecules made by combining an electron with their anti-particle positron have been created by researchers at the University of California Riverside. The team's long term goal is to use the exotic material to create 'an annihilation gamma ray laser', potentially one million times more powerful than existing lasers. 'An electron can hook up with its antiparticle, the positron, to form a hydrogen-like atom called positronium (Ps). It survives for less than 150 nanoseconds before it is annihilated in a puff of gamma radiation. It was known that two positronium atoms should be able to bind together to form a molecule ... '"
Now I'm afraid to plug in my PS/2 mouse.
Usage: km/h for speed (kilometers per hour); kph for very slow impulses (kilopond hours).
Because that's what they were saying the first time this was posted.
Granted, more powerful lasers would be great for long-distance communications, but what kind of materials could be used in fiber-optic cables to transmit gamma rays? What kind of insulation would the cable have to use?
SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
While being so excited that it's a million times more powerful, we forgot to say it'll be a million times more expensive. You don't find antimatter laying on the ground you know!
Well, part of it, anyway:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v449/n7159/abs/nature06094.html
I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing. -- Thomas Jefferson
So would the sharks be a million times more powerful, or could we just use one million *tiny* fricking lasers?
they mean a Bose-Einstein condensate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose%E2%80%93Einstein_condensate/
Lasers?
That won't even penetrate our navigational shields!
Where are your phasers?
My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
Next on /.! DIY positronium laser using household items.
I don't think that would effect the outcome of such a war ... The Us has 10 times stronger military material in Iraq, and they are not winning ... You Can't END a war with weapons, only with words (can someone SHOUT that to the neocons please?)
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
There's an interview with David Cassidy about this in the 13th September Nature Podcast (the page also has the podcast as a direct MP3 download and a transcript).
i doubt a mod will even see this with an AC attatched to it, but, meh.
try relating this idea with this one
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/13/2328233
iirc a few people were curious as to what it may take to get this off the ground (pun so intended) as it were. =P
To conserve momentum (and other) at least two photons are released in opposite direction when the two particles annihilate each other. If this is part of a gamma ray laser, you will have two rays: One aimed at your enemy, one in your face, and a mirror will probably not work at 0.5MeV.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
But mass is less relevant than you may think. The electron-positron pair is held together by the Coulomb force, which is the same force that binds the proton and the electron. The electron-positron system has a net electric charge of 0, making it electrically neutral.
As I said in the title, maybe "atom" is a bad word to describe this system. However, the word "atom" comes from a Greek word meaning "indivisible", and since we've since discovered that what we call atoms are divisible after all, the word isn't even appropriate in its accepted usage.
Laser Lover didn't writes "Molecules made by combining an electron with their anti-particle positron have not been created by researchers at the University of California Riverside. The team's long term goal is to never use the exotic material to create 'an creation gamma ray laser', potentially one million times less powerful than existing lasers. 'An electron can't hook up with its antiparticle, the positron, to form a hydrogen-like atom called positronium (Ps). It can't possibly survive for less than 150 nanoseconds before it isn't annihilated in a puff of gamma radiation. It wasn't known that two positronium atoms shouldn't be able to bind together to form a molecule ... '"
There, now the dupe and anti-dupe can form a stable dupe atom, which can bind with other dupe atoms to form powerful dupe lase.... oh dear GOD NO!!!
You Can't END a war with weapons, only with words
That is not true. Many civilizations no longer exist because they were destroyed by another. We, as a society, are unwilling to accept the measures needed to really win a military war. For this I am thankful. But saying that military might can't end a war is completely false.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
I disagree, while nuclear weapons may have hastened the end of the war, the "end" came in the form of a formal surrender.
If the US had not sought out or accepted the surrender of Japan the war would have continued in one form or another. Even if what one side is communicating is "give up or we do that again" it is still two sides meeting and making an agreement (the surrender was indeed negotiated, the US did compromise on the removal of the Emperor for instance) that ended the Pacific campaign.
I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
Mark Twain
The only real way to win a war millitarily then, is to totally annihillate the enemy. And that is no longer an option when you can't tell for sure who is your enemy and who isn't. And the fact that you kill a million people creates new enemies.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Correction, it was an unconditional surrender, but MacArthur realized how important the Emperor was and that if he removed or even approached him first (instead of letting the Emperor request his audience) the people would have revolted. They truly would not have given a fuck, you don't fuck with the Emperor cause he was pretty much a god on earth to them.
>Why the US isn't using its weapons is because the US has no right to be where it currently is,
Whether or not the US has any right to be where it currently is, the reason why it isn't unchaining its military to lay waste to the region, ala Dresden, Nagasaki, etc., is because the aftermath would be on CNN in 15 minutes.
>You can't blow up an idea, especially if each attempt just makes more followers.
You can't blow up an idea, but if you blow up enough people you can break the will of people to act on those ideas. It just takes sufficient force. We are unwilling to apply that kind of force in Iraq, and, consequently, we are having no effect on the will of our enemies there. In fact, in all likelyhood we are actually enhancing their will by being there.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Carthagio delenda est.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
I would hazard a guess (note - guess as I have not yet purchased yesterdays new scientist and read the full article) that this works as the two particles they are combining actually have opposing charge. This should get around the equal number of protons and electrons rule as the net charge of the atom will still be zero.
Since neutrons are not a necessary part of an atom this should work. The wikipedia page on hydrogen is fairly detailed so should enable you to see some similarities:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen
Of course the big difference though will be the atomic weight as this will be close to negligible. This is probably why the resultant particle is so short lived as the two components of the atom are the same mass they would behave more like a dipole where both orbit each other rather than one being a stationary nucleus with orbiting electron.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dipole
What I would like to know is how they plan on making this form a stable molecule so I will be buying new-scientist to find out.
(Disclaimer - I flunked my degree in Physics some time ago so this may all be bullshit, if you think it is please post a detailed explanation of why and mention your level of physics education if possible. Please also do not bother pointing out that I am using the Bohr model of the electron and discrediting it UNLESS you can specifically state why it does not apply in this case.)
I dont read
You beat the tar out of him, he's humiliated, and goes away for a few days, then he comes back and shoots you in the back.
You didn't win a war, there, you won a fight. The two are not the same thing.
You fight him, make it clear that you're going to win, and then talk with him such that he gets a way out and hostilities turn into a mutually acceptable relationship -- that's winning a war. You need the fists, but you also need some intelligent action.
This is not to say that there are not occasions where the fists are the ONLY intelligent thing, but that means your opponent is one stupid piece of crap. Such people exist, and they're more likely to be part of a bar fight, but I don't think the metaphor extends to nations often, if at all, as nations are large groups of people, not just one Saddam.
What do you mean off topic? We can't bust heads like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to tell 'em stories that don't go anywhere--like the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. 'Give me five bees for a quarter,' you'd say.
Now where were we? Oh yeah--the important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones. Anyway, 'long story short', is a phrase whose origins are complicated and rambling.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
It ended with a public radio broadcast of the emperor proclaiming himself to not be a God, and to end the war. If he doesn't do that, the war wouldn't have ended. So basically, what we needed was Saddam to surrender and tell everyone to stop fighting. I guess if Osama said that now, it might work ,but there are so many factions now that it wouldn't immediately end the war.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
The US is already full of evangelicals. Do you really think they haven't been training for the past decade?
Here's your sig.
The transistor was supposedly "Invented" in 1947 by Bell Labs shortly after roswell, LOL. Boy what an exciting year.
In the several years prior, jet engines first became practical, digital computers were first invented, digital computers switched from relays to vacuum tubes (which are frequently derided these days as glass field-effect transistors), some of the first plastics became available, the German Type XXI completely changed how submarines would work going forward, both cruise and ballistic missiles were invented, radars became small enough to put in bullets, and oh yeah, The Bomb. I think penicillin was invented in there, too.
Technology was moving fast then, in very visible ways.