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Anti-Matter Created By Laser At Livermore
zootropole alerts us to a press release issued today by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, announcing the production of 'billions of particles of anti-matter.' "Take a gold sample the size of the head of a push pin, shoot a laser through it, and suddenly more than 100 billion particles of anti-matter appear. The anti-matter, also known as positrons, shoots out of the target in a cone-shaped plasma 'jet.' This new ability to create a large number of positrons in a small laboratory opens the door to several fresh avenues of anti-matter research, including an understanding of the physics underlying various astrophysical phenomena such as black holes and gamma ray bursts." The press release doesn't characterize the laser used in this experiment, but it may have been this one.
Watch where you point that thing!
Take a gold sample the size of the head of a push pin, shoot a laser through it, and suddenly more than 100 billion particles of anti-matter appear.
It's so simple, I wish I'd thought of it!
...Such a process could easily provide materials for an antimatter catalyzed fission drive. Possibly even enough to power new forms of interplanetary propulsion...
Am I the only one who's getting really excited about this?
probably. they still haven't been able to crystallize di-lithium yet.
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Is there anything they can't do?
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Possibly even enough to power new forms of interplanetary propulsion
Yeah, because NASA (and similar agencies around the world) have whopping piles of cash laying around for this.
Reporter: What's it like to fly the new spaceship?
Pilot: Like burning a load of gold as fast as I can!
Yeah, and you think the class warfare rhetoric between the rich and poor nations is bad now?!?
The anti-matter, also known as positrons, shoots out of the target in a cone-shaped plasma 'jet.'
Apparently, it seems I can create anti-matter from eating too much TacoBell.
Just use a zpm to power it.
Bah!! We can't trust NASA to burn our gold, there's special agencies for dealing with this sorta thing!
I am hoping that they can produce enough anti-matter to make a weapon of some kind. An anti-matter bomb would be many many thousands of times more powerful than even a hydrogen bomb, and it gives me great hope to think that a bomb that huge would make America even safer than thousands of nuclear warheads already make it.
Oh wait, that was just me getting into touch with my inner-Teller.
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Where are the anti matter particles now?
I would think they're touching matter, since they didn't just harmlessly disappear.
Isn't there supposed to be an enormous explosion when matter and anti-matter meet?
Or is that fiction? or friction? Or fission? Or fusion? or confusion?
That would probably be why I said, "i.e. 100% conversion - losses to nuetrinos that cannot be captured". Apologies for mixing in the minus sign rather than spelling it out. As I mentioned previously, it's late and my frain is bried. ;-)
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Good question. I presume that the reaction would be somewhat more energetic, but nobody thought to ask, and he didn't say.
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Shoot a laser at the 700b bailout money, and see if a surplus appears.
Table-ized A.I.
That sounds dangerous. I, for one, am not willing to welcome our new robotic overlords! (Or regular human overlords with robot armies). Intel would need to come up with a scheme to keep the robots from harming people. Some sort of set of axioms... rules... laws, even... that would apply to all the robots they made, in order to keep them in line. Otherwise it would never work.
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> Does anyone know if this might someday lead to antimatter plants?
Nah, there isn't enough anti-sunlight for them to grow....
with a continuum transfunctioner, silly!
You need to channel the matter and anti-matter streams through dilithium crystals.
I think you need to use anti-hydrogen though, not just anti-electrons.
According to Robert Lazar, former Area 51 physicist, element 115 is used as fuel generating antimatter in an Annihilation Reactor which powers the craft. http://www.boblazar.com/closed/index.html
Details of Annihilation Reactor operation are here: http://www.boblazar.com/closed/reactor.htm