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Antimatter In Lightning
AMESN writes "The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, launched last year, detects gamma rays from light years away, but recently it detected gamma rays from lightning on Earth. And the energy of the gamma rays is specific to the decay of positrons, which are the antimatter flavor of electrons. Finding antimatter in lightning surprised researchers and suggests the electric field of the lightning somehow got reversed."
... lightning is made of electro-matter, matter's bad-ass grandma!
The decay of positrons in the largescale discharge of electronic particles may very well lead to gamma ray emissions, however it is crucial to understand the energy output required to reverse the polarity of the discharge so that we can reproduce the phenomenon in a controlled laboratory.
Or else the Romulans will destroy the Federation.
Anti-matter is required to provide so many jigga...
sorry!
Reverse the polarity? Good god, next you'll be wanting to cross the streams.
This game will waste your life. Don't clicky!
does this mean the LHC is obsolete?
Maybe the lightning streams got crossed...
I don't know. But it will explain how a DeLorean can go back to the future.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
It's Zefram Cochrane who "invented" the warp drive (didn't explain what was used to power it), Doc Brown needed the lightning for his "flux capacitor".
My geekiness is showing.
Now the monster of frankenstein (powered by lightning) was in fact the first asimovian positronic robot (ok, the alpha one, without any law). With that much discussion about who could be the author to write Asimov's stories, maybe the original Mary Shelley could be the one worthy for that task.
Dr. Emmet Brown + Marty Mcfly?
It's the only way.
Dr. Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal!
Dr. Peter Venkman: That's bad. Okay. All right, important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.
Does this mean that Star Trek style warp drive only works in an "Electric Universe" physics model? Or does it mean that we don't have to worry about crossing the streams once we reach 55mph?
Great Scott!
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Apparently they've detected gamma ray energies up to 20 MeV from thunderstorms, so given that amount of energy involved I wouldn't think it's that surprising that electron-positron pairs might be created in the process since an electron only has a mass of .511 MeV. The thunderstorms are basically operating like natural linear accelerators.
Antimatter in lightning does not suggest that the electric field got reversed; that's nonsense. The electric field is a vector, and it can point in any direction.
What it does suggest is either that the few positrons created or brought by cosmic rays are somehow concentrated by lightning, or that the strong electric fields in lightning are actually pulling a few positron-electron pairs out of the quantum electrodynamic vacuum. The first explanation is probably ruled out unless positron decay gamma rays are also seen all over in the atmosphere, just not as densely concentrated as in lightning.
The second explanation is perfectly possible, if the electric fields in lightning are simply strong enough over large enough volumes of space. Any potential difference greater than 2 m c^2/e will in theory produce positrons and electrons from nothing; this is called 'the Schwinger Effect'. But the rate is ridiculously low unless the field is enormous, and it has not yet been observed. Relatively straightforward calculations would allow one to estimate what sort of electric fields lightning would need to involve, for the observations to be due to the Schwinger Effect.
Researchers have been looking for the tell-tale 0.511 MeV photons for decades in lightning storms. The idea is that a lightning channel could act like a natural particle accelerator. So electron-positron pairs could be created. But they have never been seen before from what I understand. But maybe these particles were created in much larger lightning bolts or perhaps the emissions are preferentially directed upwards into space ... dunno. Very interesting.
> The article isn't clear about what they say they've detected.
Nuclear fusion reactions in the lightning produce positrons which then react with electrons to produce the observed gamma rays.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
If they're detecting 511KeV gammas generated by "the direct conversion of electrons to energy" not involving positrons, then, yeah, it would be a hell of a discovery, seeing as how it would blow away all those stodgy conservation laws and symmetries and whatnot.
Not that surprising, with all those jigawatts of energy in lightning...
<tinfoil>
How else does ball lightning float?
</tinfoil>
Have they discounted temporal anomalies?
There is the theory of the moebius. A twist in the fabric of space where time becomes a loop.
...it could also mean the direct conversion of electrons to energy by some other unexplained means.
then for that energy we would need 2 electrons, not one.
Either way, it would be a hell of a discovery, potentially leading to matter-to-energy conversion power generation. To hell with fusion power, this is better!
well isn't fusion a way of matter-to-energy conversion power generator?
It’s a surprise to have found the signature of positrons during a lightning storm, Briggs said.
No, it's not.
There is a long history of observations and theorizing about gamma ray flashes from lightning strikes and ball lightning, starting in the early 1970's :
Is Ball Lightning caused by Antimatter Meteorites?
D. E. T. F. ASHBY, C. WHITEHEAD, Nature 230, 180-182 (19 March 1971).
This has also been observed in connection with "sprites".
And from thunderclouds without lightning.
Oh, and it's also been observed from space before :
RHESSI Observations of Terrestrial Gamma-Ray Flashes
Now, not all of these reports include a positron annihilation signature at 511 KeV. But, 511 KeV emissions were explicitly reported from lightning in the 1970's. And, considering that lightning / thunderstorm related gamma rays are routinely observed with energies up to 10 MeV, there is plenty of energy to create positrons, and so I wouldn't be surprised if all of these reports included the positron annihilation line (or, at least the ones with sensitivity in that energy range).
You're all off base.The explanaion is much simpler.
Did anybody shout "SHAZAM!" nearby?
Is the radiation you observe when a positron is annihilated different from what you would see if, say, an electron collided with a proton?
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I think all our hopes and dreams are found right here in this solar system.
then for that energy we would need 2 electrons, not one.
511 KeV is the mass-equivalent energy of a single electron or positron, and annihilation results in two gamma photons heading off in different directions.
well isn't fusion a way of matter-to-energy conversion power generator?
Yes, but it's not as clean as direct annihilation would be. It generates neutrons which make the materials used for containment radioactive.
Umm... This would be hydrogen + hydrogen = deuterium + positron? That makes sense... Though to be generating enough positrons to show detectable levels of gammas from space, that would be a huge discovery.
You act as if that would exclude it from being a possibility that one could check.
Sure, it makes it a very unlikely possibility. But should we just never ever check the unlikely possibilities? That would not get us very far, would it?
Remember: In science, NEVER be arrogant, or too convinced of your theories. Because that is usually when someone comes up with proof that you are wrong, and everybody starts to laugh at you. ^^
(Optionally after some decades of denial.)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Yes, but it's not as clean as direct annihilation would be. It generates neutrons which make the materials used for containment radioactive.
Depends on the starting elements. Among others, He3+He3->He4+2p+E. No free neutrons generated, only protons and energy.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Apart from the problem to only get this reaction and nothing else: All current fusion designs have the shortcoming that they have idea how to get the energy out of the plasma, except by neutrons.
There were some initial designs not going that way avoiding the costy tritium and the problem of having to throw the whole reactor in the heavy-contaminated nuclear trash every few years, but currently all I know being researched on is based on trying to make something (preferably some form of carbon) as radioactive as possible.
Could it be the other way around, that cosmic rays trigger lightning? So the timing is just a coincidence?
No, of all our technology to produce power it still involves boiling water.
Tapping these nuclear sources directly would be a step forward.
Let us see.. the electric field that gives rise to lightning discharges measures, what, 100 MV? In that field electrons and singly charged ions could, in principal, be accelerated to energies up to 100 MeV. The rest mass of an electron is 0.51 MeV, the rest mass of an electron-positron pair thus is 1.02 MeV. No, most electrons and ions would not attain these energy levels due to collisions etc. but some might get up to the required level to generate e-p pairs. The p will annihilate some e and, voila, you have your 1.02 MeV gamma photons.
See a lightning strike as in particle accelerator with an in-situ target.
>Remember: In science, NEVER be arrogant, or too convinced of your theories.
Wow, you haven;t been around academics much have you?
I recall an old joke:
"How many PHDs does it take to change a light bulb?
One to unscrew it, one to pull the chair from underneath him"
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
What's a stream? Is it like a subspace tachyon polarization discharge eddy?
Fusion releases the binding energy of the fused nucleus. It's like what happens in a chemical reaction except the mediating force is the (residual) strong force instead of the electromagnetic force, so you tend to get more energy. That amount of energy is still very small compared to the total energy represented by the mass of the reactants. It's not really matter to energy power generation because the mass that gets converted to energy is not really "matter" but rather potential energy. You're talking about a process where you actually take some matter and convert it entirely into energy.
Take a simple fusion reaction, 2H + 2H -> 3He + n.
Look at the mass balance of that equation:
delta mass = 2*(mass of 2H) - (mass of 3He + mass of n)
= 2*(2.0141 u) - (3.0160 u + 1.0087 u)
= 0.0035 u.
In contrast, if you found some kind of total conversion method you could convert the entire mass of the reactants into energy. That is, instead of 0.0035 u converted into energy you'd have 4.0282 u -- the total conversion reaction yields more than a thousand times the energy of the fusion reaction.
No, of all our technology to produce power it still involves boiling water.
Except for internal combustion, photovoltaic solar, molten-sodium solar, hydroelectric, wind, or using an alternator instead of a break to provide resistance to excersie equipment.
Yeah, so, aside from all of those, everything uses boiling water.
No, but Wall-mart might have them on sale
Molten sodium is used to boil water. Wind and water and internal combustion spin generators other ways. Only photovoltaic is a direct electrical source.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
or is anyone else having a hard time differentiating between real science and star trek jokes?
And they can tell this is the decay of a positron and not an electron by what means? Shouldn't they have the same energy wavelength?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I find it so funny that, everytime a piece of news is posted here about someone discovering something fascinating to the scientific community, there's always a group of people that already knew about it/didn't find the discovery so relevant/etc. These people usually write long posts with technical vocabulary unfolding the misteries of the discovery to everyone, which makes me wonder why they are not working in these laboratories already where they could have solved these misteries long ago (or maybe I'm wrong and some of them already are working there).
From the first paragraph of the article:
During its first 14 months of operation, the flying observatory has detected 17 gamma-ray flashes associated with terrestrial storms -- and some of those flashes have contained a surprising signature of antimatter.
In other words, they have detected 17 gamma-ray flashes due to lightning, and some of them have the signature of antimatter (i.e. the electron-positron annihilation).
I'm not sure how that's not exactly what you're saying they didn't say. Just because they didn't say 511 KeV? If 511 KeV is the signature of electron-positron antimatter collitions, and they've found the signature of antimatter collisions in some (not all) of the storms, wouldn't that suggest they are seeing 511 KeV bursts?
Here's more:
During two recent lightning storms, Fermi recorded gamma-ray emissions of a particular energy that could have been produced only by the decay of energetic positrons, the antimatter equivalent of electrons.
It seems pretty specific about what they are seeing, it is simply stated in a high-level language that the common interested-but-not-knowledgeable reader can understand.
This is essentially an online science news magazine, not a journal for published papers seeking peer review. They are only going to give you the gist of the information at a high-level, and from there if you have better knowledge of the subject you should have an automatic deeper insight into what they might be seeing.
It's not like it's some amature job either, the space telescope was built to find this sort of thing, so finding these signatures is not like some wack job pop-sci company pushing nonsense in a press conference to attract investors before folding in a few years.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Anyone who watches Star Trek knows that any time you want to solve technical problems or achieve new developments, all you need to do is reverse the polarity or invert the phase. Why didn't the folks behind the LHC try this? It's have saved billions of dollars and years of delays! ;)
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Many of us wish we could forget ever having been exposed to that show as children. I watched an episode on TV Land a few years ago wondering if it really was as good as I thought it was when I was a toddler. Um, no. It ranks down close to the star wars holiday special. Thankfully I grew out of childhood early enough to avoid having ever developed twisted fond memories of Barney, or even Elmo (Elmo ruined Sesame Street).
Another show I am morbidly curious about is "Wizards and Warriors" - is it as horribly bad as I imagine it was? What about Knight Rider? I've tried watching Knight Rider on Hulu. I can't make it through a single episode. It's horrible.
"SHAZAM"! Ugh. Thanks for bringing back repressed memories. Now I'm traumatized and need to find a good shrink. ;)
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Anyone who watches Star Trek knows that any time you want to solve technical problems or achieve new developments, all you need to do is reverse the polarity or invert the phase.
You forgot to reroute through the main deflector.
...call the contract lawyers.
Does anyone know what the cross section of a lightning bolt looks like? I've always wondered if forces akin to the skin-effect are trying to spread out the electrons while it's constrained in a tube of plasma. Is it round? Is it a sheet? What's the electron density like? What sorts of pressures would you expect in the center of a bolt?
Just curious... but I'm unable to find a google hit and too dumb to simulate it.
http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
Boiling water isn't a direct electrical source either, it's all about energy conversion. The easiest way to convert heat into electricity is to first convert it to kinetic energy. The easiest, cheapest, and safest way to convert heat energy to kinetic energy is to boil water and creat a pressure differential to drive a piston or turbine or what have you. It's very effective, and there isn't any compound likely to do the job better than H2O that isn't also prohibitively expensive.
Heat is the easiest form of raw energy to produce, and if boiling water is the easiest, cheapest, and safest way to convert heat energy into kinetic energy (which is then trivial to convert to electrical energy at very high conversion rates).
Heat engines are also still the most efficient form of energy conversion available to us. A typical modern steam turbine generator will convert close to 50% of the heat energy to electricity, and in some applications can convert as much as 90%. Combustion engines are typically in the 30% range, but getting higher, though they have a theoretical hard limit at 37%. Photvoltaic is coming along, but frankly it's still young and the readily available PV cells compare poorly to combustion and turbine engines. The theoretical limit for a single cell is about 40% efficiency (with light concentrators), but new techniques are working around that limit (they use multiple materials in the cell, effectively combining several cells in one) and the current record is around 43%.
The big problem PV has vs combustion or turbine engines is energy density - the fuel sources the later two methods use are significantly more energy dense than plain sunlight. Sunlight throws a lot of energy everywhere, but only a little in any particular spot. Concentrating it effectively has always been a problem.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Had a mis-statement, I meant turbine engines are the most efficient form of energy conversion available.
Also, ignore the fragment.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
why you need lightning to give life to inanimate flesh and time travel.
There is the theory of the moebius. A twist in the fabric of space where time becomes a loop.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Just out of curiosity, (and sorry for derailing the thread) who is spending these billions of dollars to build and repair the LHC?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
In that positrons are subatomic particles.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
And direct MHD conversion of the kinetic energy from charged particles to electrical power...
What were the odds of that? Seems as unlikely as getting hit by...well you know.
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
Note that positrons don't decay, even though the summary says they do. Positrons are stable, but they can annihilate with electrons to produce two photons. (At higher energies, the annihilation can produce other particles instead of photons.) But, decay they do not.
in the form of cartoons etc. to try and make out it's not a big deal - that the force is real..
There is the theory of the moebius. A twist in the fabric of space where time becomes a loop.
Yes, that should create a cascade reaction.
If a small roll of Sellotape can generate X-rays in a vacuum chambers, we just need a larger or stickier roll to generate these gamma-rays and anti-matter. Alternatively, get someone to pull the tape extra fast.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
And [insert deity name] said: "Maybe now you won't mess with a guy with a positron collider!"
I don't disagree with any of that. the parent as trying to point out sources of power that don't require boiling water.
if we could get electricity directly from fission or fusion it would be awesome but hey one step at a time.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Hell, no! I was talking about the comic books! Thanks for reminding me that TV abomination existed. Not.
Or, perhaps, "Hey Kool-aid!"
"How many PHDs does it take to change a light bulb?"
Nearby zero if you trust quantum physics and have a lot of time.
Just out of curiosity, (and sorry for derailing the thread) who is spending these billions of dollars to build and repair the LHC?
The Vulcans. Duh. Keep up next time.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
Lamest... summary... Ever! [/Comic Book Guy-mode]
sigfault (core dumped)
http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/838059
No Moebius has been achieved, no twisting of space fabric, just further twisting of SlashDot, an easily-achieved objective where Loop = Loop+ (always).
Industrial Age 2 + How-to Stop Malignant Cancers.
Is Eddy in the space-time continuum again?
Any second year physics major should be able to tell you the electric field required in a plasma for electron positron pair production. The calculation is easy in a near vacuum. At atmospheric pressure it's a bit more difficult, but not that much.
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If a small roll of Sellotape can generate X-rays in a vacuum chambers, we just need a larger or stickier roll to generate these gamma-rays and anti-matter. Alternatively, get someone to pull the tape extra fast.
Is that you, Dr Wirnstrom?
Wirnstrom...
"All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
Please go have a chat with the global warming alarmists and get them to release the raw data and the algorithms they used to "massage" the data and arrive at their results. It'd be nice if global warming were true, and if it really isn't about the money (creating carbon exchanges, similar to stock exchanges).
Even though global warming is real, it simply isn't in our economical best interests to retool so many industries to account for it. Eventually science and desperation will solve the problem. Let's face it, the environmental movement just isn't a good investment.
Although global warming isn't real, it's part of a global debate because it's such a huge source of profit. Any fool can see it's all about the money. There's no other reason that people would be trying to develop entire industries around the environmental movement.
This space intentionally left blank: ____________________________________________________
"All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
The Illuminati are likely funding this through their fronts. They likely want to attain knowledge or power that will be used to tighten their control over the masses,so they can reinforce their belief they are God like. And if it fails, they don't care if they destroy the world in the attempt.
To the defense of answerbag.com, they never claim that the answers found on their site are correct.
How we come so far not having any Hulk related jokes, people!?
It's 'gamma ray' flashes!!!!
How many PHDs does it take to change a light bulb?
Pfft... none of course. That's what graduate students are for.
Gamma rays of energy > 1.022 MeV ( i.e. 2 x 511keV, the mass of an electron) can decay to form an electron-positron pair in the presence of another atom. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter_creation
If this happens (which it should) , then positrons will be present in the storm.
Positrons decay by a reverse process to the above, meeting an electron and decaying into two gamma rays of 511keV back-to-back. Spotting these 511keV photons is the classic signature for "anti-matter". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron-positron_annihilation .
I think it works by destabilising the flow of verterons from the flux capicitors to force a dampening field in the dilithium chystal chamber, by establishing that, we need to reinitalise the tachyon emiters to generate enough power to induce a chronoton particle leak in the nucleocentric containment matrix. Only then we might reverse the polarity of the electron discharge into a stream. Did you copy that?
Put the thing into the other thing. Got it.
(female computer voice) - Dilithium pressures critical. Warp core breach imminent.
Verterons, as in ...bulluc sterteth, bucke verteth... ? That makes a verteron a fart particle.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Well, it's good to know that we'll reach the technology to escape tractor beams before going for the warp drive : )
http://dilbert.com/2010-12-13
Anyone who watches Star Trek knows that any time you want to solve technical problems or achieve new developments, all you need to do is reverse the polarity or invert the phase.
You forgot to reroute through the main deflector.
you'll burn out the ODN conduits and fry the plasma relays if you do that.