Scientists have apparently captured antimatter for a few minutes

Zikar · 06-08-2011 12:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Spad_EU

None of the LHC scientists really thought that - I mean, the strangelet thing was plausible but so improbable as to be almost irrelevant, but the black hole claims made by various doom-sayers were always complete nonsense (not that the LHC couldn't theoretically create a black hole, but that it would pose the slightest risk to anyone on Earth if it did).

There's also the fact that the things they are doing are happening all the time just about everywhere in nature, they're just recreating it in an observable form.

Ice_Wall · 06-08-2011 01:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NinjaPirate

There are stories floating about that the scientists and military guys testing the first atom bomb left their cars running, just in case the atmosphere caught fire and they had to flee.

Ahh, the joys of naive ignorance...

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And go where? If they set the atmosphere on fire, it'd catch up to their cars, or they'd run out of air... Well I'm sure they didn't think that far ahead... But that's kind of funny.

I love this, so when can we start making enough to smash together with matter and use the energy to power things instead of using gas and coal... Screw green energy I want matter\antimatter energy...

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Zikar · 06-08-2011 01:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ice_Wall

I love this, so when can we start making enough to smash together with matter and use the energy to power things instead of using gas and coal... Screw green energy I want matter\antimatter energy...

Right now I expect it costs more energy to make the stuff than we'd get out of it.

Blue Rabbit · 06-08-2011 01:14 AM

But then the Trial reset?

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Durakken · 06-08-2011 02:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Spad_EU

None of the LHC scientists really thought that - I mean, the strangelet thing was plausible but so improbable as to be almost irrelevant, but the black hole claims made by various doom-sayers were always complete nonsense (not that the LHC couldn't theoretically create a black hole, but that it would pose the slightest risk to anyone on Earth if it did).

you missed the joke completely...

Soulwind · 06-08-2011 09:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zikar

Right now I expect it costs more energy to make the stuff than we'd get out of it.

And the Laws of Thermodynamics say it always will...

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The_Spad_EU · 06-08-2011 10:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Durakken

you missed the joke completely...

The scientists involved in the Manhattan project *were* concerned about the potential of igniting the atmosphere (fusion, not combustion, the outcome is pretty similar in either case here), the scientists involved with the LHC were not concerned about creating a black hole that would swallow the earth because, to paraphrase Morbo, black holes do not work that way.

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synthozoic · 06-08-2011 10:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nericus

http://techland.time.com/2011/06/06/...tes/?hpt=hp_t2

Article makes some humorous comic/star trek references, but apparently scientists are allegedly a step closer to the creation, containment and study of antimatter...

One of the things that is being overlooked in the comments here is that being able to trap antimatter like this will finally let us accumulate enough to actually weigh it.

This might seem trivial, and the vast consensus in physics is that antimatter has mass just as ordinary matter does, but we don't really know that antimatter behaves in a gravitational field in the same way matter does because the amounts we've worked with so far have been far too tiny to weigh accurately. Gravity is a staggeringly weak force in comparison to the electromagnetic forces we use to steer antiparticles around in accelerators and so on.

But with this trap and enough stable antihydrogen, our most sensitive instruments will at last be able to confirm or deny this assumption.

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ebon3 · 06-08-2011 08:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Durakken

1 atom of antimatter would be enough to create a fire cracker amount of energy. It'd sting so it'd make a decent weapon. 2 or 3 more would likely be enough to disable a person for a bit.

I dunno, I bet if you could inject that 1 atom of antimatter into a person it could create some havoc somewhere. A firecracker floating around in your brain would certainly rain on your parade.

Man, sounds so like something the KGB would do!

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Soulwind · 06-09-2011 06:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Durakken

1 atom of antimatter would be enough to create a fire cracker amount of energy. It'd sting so it'd make a decent weapon. 2 or 3 more would likely be enough to disable a person for a bit.

E=MC^2

1 atom of Hydrogen has a mass of 1.67E-27 kg
(we'll assume 1 atom of anti-hydrogen has the same mass)

E = 1.67E-27 kg * (300,000,000 m/s ^2)

E = 0.00000000000000000000000000167 kg * 90,000,000,000,000,000 m2/s2

E = 0.0000000001503 kg*m2/s2 or 1.503E-10 Joules

Hardly a firecracker. In fact, I doubt it would even be measurable by anything but the most sensitive of equipment.

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Durakken · 06-09-2011 09:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Soulwind

E=MC^2

1 atom of Hydrogen has a mass of 1.67E-27 kg
(we'll assume 1 atom of anti-hydrogen has the same mass)

E = 1.67E-27 kg * (300,000,000 m/s ^2)

E = 0.00000000000000000000000000167 kg * 90,000,000,000,000,000 m2/s2

E = 0.0000000001503 kg*m2/s2 or 1.503E-10 Joules

Hardly a firecracker. In fact, I doubt it would even be measurable by anything but the most sensitive of equipment.

Sorta right...

If I'm reading your math right...

1 hydrogen atom = 1.5 Joules of energy.
According to wiki a joule is equal to the kinetic energy of a tennis ball moving at 23 km/h (14 mph)

In a matter/anti-matter reaction we are releasing the energy of 2 atoms which makes a simple 1 atom anti-matter weapon = 3 joules of energy.

Or I would think... 42mph tennis ball.

That's enough to sting someone decently... if we're talking 2 or 3 atoms then that be an 84 or 126mph tennis ball...

So if you could deliver that in rapid succession you'd have a non-lethal anti-crime weapon. that isn't dangerous

edit... well the weapon itself wouldn't be dangerous... where ever you buy or store the ammo might be...

Dark_Respite · 06-09-2011 10:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zombie Man

That was the first thing that came to mind, actually...

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Samothrake · 06-09-2011 10:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Durakken

Sorta right...

If I'm reading your math right...

1 hydrogen atom = 1.5 Joules of energy.
According to wiki a joule is equal to the kinetic energy of a tennis ball moving at 23 km/h (14 mph)

Actually I think you missed the minus (-) part of that equasion. so it is 1.5 to the -10th power joules. If my foggy math memories serve me, that is one and a half trillionth of a joule (or perhaps one and a half hundredth billlion of a joule, not sure).
He shows that the energy is 0.0000000001503 joules of energy.
1.503E-10 Joules is just a shorthand way of not having to put in all those 0s, dude.
Unfortunately, our forum doesn't do superscript, which is what is truly needed for equasions of this kind to look right.

Ice_Wall · 06-09-2011 10:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Soulwind

E=MC^2

1 atom of Hydrogen has a mass of 1.67E-27 kg
(we'll assume 1 atom of anti-hydrogen has the same mass)

E = 1.67E-27 kg * (300,000,000 m/s ^2)

E = 0.00000000000000000000000000167 kg * 90,000,000,000,000,000 m2/s2

E = 0.0000000001503 kg*m2/s2 or 1.503E-10 Joules

Hardly a firecracker. In fact, I doubt it would even be measurable by anything but the most sensitive of equipment.

Don't forget to double it. After all the Anti hydrogen will release it's energy when it comes into contact with Hydrogen, as well the hydrogen, so you're going to have 2 atoms releasing their energy all over the place...

(Sorry if you doubled it and I missed it, I don't see it in the math, but I'm an English major)

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RemusShepherd · 06-09-2011 10:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Durakken

Sorta right...

If I'm reading your math right...

1 hydrogen atom = 1.5 Joules of energy.

You're not reading him right. He said that 1 hydrogen atom = 1.5E-10 Joules, a.k.a. 1.5 x 10^-10 Joules. You need 10^10 hydrogen atoms in order to get to 1.5 Joules. (That's still not much -- about 1x10^-14 grams -- but it's a lot more than one atom.)

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Soulwind · 06-09-2011 10:42 AM

Yes. Assuming my math's right (I think it is, but I'm willing to accept that I might be wrong), 1 atom of anti-hydrogen being converted entirely to energy via matter/anti-matter reaction would release 0.15 nano-joules of energy.

1 nano-joule is at 1E-9 (or 0.000000001 joule) and we're actually at E-10. I'm not sure what the prefix for -10 would be though so I moved it to 0.1E-9 (or .1 nano-joule)

1 nano-joule is supposedly equal to 1/160th of the kinetic energy of a flying mosquito.

So this would be approximately 1/1000th of the energy of a flying mosquito.

If the references for energy amounts I found are correct, the Large Hadron Collider releases energy at the scale of 1E-6 (or a full 4 decimal places [10,000 times] LARGER than what we're talking about) when it does an atomic particle collision...

EDIT:
Oh and thanks for pointing out the need to double the value since 2 atoms are actually in question (the hydrogen and the anti-hydrogen). I did forget about that part! So that would make it 0.3 nano-joules total.

Of course, these numbers only hold true if the energy release/conversion was 100% efficient, and frankly I'm not smart enough to figure that part out

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Samothrake · 06-09-2011 10:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ice_Wall

Don't forget to double it. After all the Anti hydrogen will release it's energy when it comes into contact with Hydrogen, as well the hydrogen, so you're going to have 2 atoms releasing their energy all over the place...

(Sorry if you doubled it and I missed it, I don't see it in the math, but I'm an English major)

I don't see the doubling, but even doubled, we are looking at either 3 trillionths or three hundred billionths of a joule. We probably use more energy to blink our eyes.

ZephyrWind · 06-09-2011 11:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ice_Wall

And go where? If they set the atmosphere on fire, it'd catch up to their cars, or they'd run out of air... Well I'm sure they didn't think that far ahead... But that's kind of funny.

I love this, so when can we start making enough to smash together with matter and use the energy to power things instead of using gas and coal... Screw green energy I want matter\antimatter energy...

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Samothrake · 06-09-2011 11:46 AM

Ok, quick research here. Atomic weight is based on one twelfth of a carbon atom. Hydrogen atomic weight is 1.00794 with a quick round to 1.008. The exact weight of a single carbon atom (found
here) is 0.00000000000000000000019942 grams.
One twelfth of that is 0.0000000000000000000000166183333333333 grams.
Multiply this by the 1.008 atomic weight of hydrogen, and we get 0.00000000000000000000001675128 grams as the weight of a single hydrogen molecule.

Now a picogram is 0.000000000001 grams, or one trillionth of a gram. For those of you who don’t want to count, that’s 11 zeroes before the one.
So with 22 zeroes before the 1 in above measurement, I think the term we can use is that a hydrogen atom weighs 1.7 trillionths of a trillionth of a gram.

So, assuming that Soulwind’s approximation of the speed of light (300,000,000 meters per second) is correct, and the squaring of said speed is correct (90,000,000,000,000,000), if we multiply the squaring of the speed by 0.000000000000000000000017 we get 0.00000153. I have to assume that this measurement is in joules, so it is 1.53 millionths of a joule. Doubling that (since we are talking about two atoms completely converting) is still only 3.3 millionths of a joule (microjoules).

This is all assuming that my scientific calculator is correct.

The E = 0.0000000001503 kg*m2/s2 equasion is one that I don't quite understand, but the net effect (in laymans terms) is that it seems to add four 0s after the point, in effect turning millionths of a joule into ten billionths of a joule.

I dunno. Anyways, it's a very small amount of energy. Not quite as small as a picojoule, but close.

Samothrake · 06-09-2011 12:01 PM

A bit more quick research on metric system prefixes produced this web site.

So we can safely say that a single hydrogen atom weighs .17 entograms.

Between -9th power and -12th power there is no actual prefix, so we have to use points again. Which means, yes, .3 nanojoules.

I love (re)learning neat stuff like this!

Hyperstrike · 06-09-2011 12:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill

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