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Design Starting For Matter-Antimatter Collider

Posted by samzenpus on from the dump-the-warp-core dept.

couch_warrior writes "The Register is carrying a story on the early design efforts for the next generation of high-energy particle accelerators. They will be linear, and will collide matter and antimatter in the form of electrons and positrons. The obvious question will be: once we have a matter-antimatter reactor, how long till we have warp drive, and will the Vulcans show up for a sneak-peak?"

8 of 191 comments (clear)

  1. antimatter by byteframe · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Antimatter is like matter, but with an opposite electrical charge.

  2. Wrong Question by Tubal-Cain · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The obvious question will be: once we have a matter-antimatter reactor, how long till we have warp drive, and will the Vulcans show up for a sneak-peak?"

    Actually, I think the next question would be: "Now how can get some antimatter?"

    It's my understanding that we can only manufacture ridiculously minute quantities of the stuff, and that may take more energy to make than we'll get out of it anyways.

    1. Re:Wrong Question by StrategicIrony · · Score: 3, Insightful

      antimatter is like molecular hydrogen as a fuel for fuel cells. It's more of a storage device of energy than it is a a way to "produce" energy.

      At this point it's terribly inefficient, but theoretically, it could be a viable means of taking an enormous amount of energy and storing it in a small place. :-)

    2. Re:Wrong Question by Tubal-Cain · · Score: 2, Insightful

      At least you don't need to keep electromagnets powered up to store hydrogen...

    3. Re:Wrong Question by Tubal-Cain · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeah, I do call that minute. Positrons (the cheap stuff) costs ~$25 Billion per gram. "Hundreds of billions" of positrons is a few orders of magnitude less than that (to put it mildly).

  3. Matter / anti matter reactor is not enough by ivan_w · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Unfortunately, a matter/anti matter reactor is not enough to create an Alcubierre drive.. We still need some Exotic Matter.. And a lot of it..

    So .. go back to sleep.. nothing to see here..

    --Ivan

  4. Matter-Antimatter isnt new by Zorpheus · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There were already some electron-positron colliders, the LEP for example. I think the new thing about this collider is that it is a linear and for high energy. In an electron/positron synchrotron the particles are flying in circles, permanently loosing energy to synchrotron radiation. This is why a linear design will allow to achieve higher energies.

  5. Vogons clear it for an Intergalactic Highway by kubitus · · Score: 2, Insightful

    maybe by Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz himself now back to the poetry