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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.
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
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.
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
To crush our enemies, see them driven before us, and hear the lamentations of their women.
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?
>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.
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