Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
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...
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
Positrons aren't actually that hard to find. All you need is (trying to remember Chem 2) an isotope that produces beta+ radiation. Heard of a PET scan? The P is for Positron. They put some radioactive sugar in your brain and map where the annihilations occur to determine brain activity.
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
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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