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Physicists Build Bigger 'Bottles' For Antimatter
intellitech writes "Once regarded as the stuff of science fiction, antimatter — the mirror image of the ordinary matter in our observable universe — is now the focus of laboratory studies around the world. While physicists routinely produce antimatter with radioisotopes and particle colliders, cooling these antiparticles and containing them for any length of time is another story. Clifford Surko, a professor of physics at UC San Diego, who is constructing what he hopes will be the world's largest antimatter container, said physicists have recently developed new methods to make special states of antimatter in which they can create large clouds of antiparticles, compress them and make specially tailored beams for a variety of uses."
"...make specially tailored beams for a variety of uses."
Read: blowing stuff up.
I love science!
Idiots are going to blow us all to Kingdom Come. You know this is just the first step in making a planet buster bomb.
To produce enough anti-matter to match the destructive potential of the Tsar Bomba hydrogen bomb, you would need the energy output of a gigawatt power station for 6.6 years. And that is assuming perfect production and storage which we are no where close to achieving. In reality, it takes orders of magnitude more energy to crate anti-matter than can get out of the annihilation of that anti-matter, so the actual length of time would be closer to 600 years than 6.
So, sorry, no earth shattering kaboom just yet.
Unless I've done the math wrong, annihilation of one hydrogen/anti-hydrogen pair yields about 3*10^-9 joules. Not much of a bang.
... the novel "Angels and Daemons"...
:)
I see someone's posting from work
I have a bag of sugar - we're half way there!
Yes but I think the antimatter annihilation reaction would cause side reactions that would release neutrons and create more nuclear waste...
In practice, though, the reason highly radioactive nuclear waste even exists as a problem is because it ISN'T waste - it's unburned fuel. More than 99% of the energy in the nuclear fuel is still remaining, which is why the waste can emit dangerous levels of radiation for thousands of years.
How much antimatter do you need to make a bomb that will, say, take down an medium-to-high-rise apartment complex?
Once the technology to create and contain antimatter indefinitely is available AND is small enough to fit on a tabletop, how long before some terrorists buys a condo and sets up a "slow bomb" that will detonate in 10 or 20 years, after it's created and stored enough antimatter to take out the building when it goes boom?
OK, maybe he's okay if it doesn't take out the building, he just wants to scare people, so he buys 10 condos around town and 10 years later there's 10 explosions and 10 severely damaged buildings staggered seemingly randomly over the course of a month, and everyone is wondering "OMG, does my neighbor have a bomb in the basement?"
Of course, by then we won't be saying OMG, but I digress.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Speaking for the antimatter, I believe that there is a misconception. We don't appreciate being called the "anti" matter. We are the other-matter to you. From our perspective, you are the antimatter! You don't like it very much when someone calls YOU antimatter do you. I wish we could all just get along but it was not meant to be. We will continue to annihilate any of you that try to contact us. Please! Just leave us alone!!!!
Thank You
"Meaningless!, Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless!"
Can they mount the anti-matter beam emitters on sharks? That would be awesome.
Well up above the tropostrata
There is a region stark and stellar
Where, on a streak of anti-matter
Lived Dr. Edward Anti-Teller.
Remote from Fusion's origin,
He lived unguessed and unawares
With all his antikith and kin,
And kept macassars on his chairs.
One morning, idling by the sea,
He spied a tin of monstrous girth
That bore three letters: A. E. C.
Out stepped a visitor from Earth.
Then, shouting gladly o'er the sands,
Met two who in their alien ways
Were like as lentils. Their right hands
Clasped, and the rest was gamma rays.
-- Harold P Furth
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear