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Ever read the book by Dan Brown Angels&Demons? it has antimatter! W00T!

Nope, but sound like one I should pick up and peruse sometime.

Still, I'd like to see if they do something with quartz crystals to make it act like the dilithium from Star Trek. The antimatter in Star Trek is apparently anti-hydrogen. The dilithium allows for the hydrogen and anti-hydrogen atoms to pass through it without combining, then focusing the plasma/radiation/energy reaction through the crystals.

Probably a few years off.

"Probably a few years off."

Oh, probably, considering containg an Antimatter reaction is decades beyond our science. Jeesh.

Actually, containment of antimatter is easy with strong electromagnetic fields, but using 1000 Amps to hold onto a couple of antimatter particles is like using a cannon swat a fly.

But what the researcher have done is create the first mechanical model for creating a constant flow of antimatter, if even in such small proportions.

Maybe in 50 years we won't have any nuclear power plants, but a bunch of antimatter electrical plants.

Micah and Joe,

I shall chime in again. Both of you are right in one way or another but not with the full story. The problem is that it takes much more antimatter to create a useful amount of power than we are able to create in a feasible amount of time at this point.

I read an article about a year ago (in Popular Science, I believe) that stated that with our technology, it would take something like 100,000 years to create a single kilogram of antimatter.

Whether it is encased in EM fields or quartz, the case is the same: 1KG of antimatter will take too long to produce given our current technology. Thus, we are decades, probably centuries, away from making this a plausible technology. SCRAMjet technology is more feasible at this point in the world of propulsion and it has its own problems, none of which I will discuss here since it has no bearing on this article.

Micah, you never took basic physics did you?

1000amps is nothing. Not when you consider how powerful that stuff is. An electromagnetic field cannot "contain" a antimatter partical, or any number of them. It can mearly guide it.To contain antimatter, you need a PERFECT vacuum AND a EM feild of a much greater strength than 100 amps. So, your little idea of how to contain antimatter doesn't pay off. Nothing can contain antimatter, because if antimatter comes in contact with matter it does more than realese energy. It totally and utterly decimates what it came into contact with, down to the last molecule. You cannot control this stuff.

Second. Their is no way to mass produce antimatter. Not even with this technology. Take into acount, if you will, the fact that antimatter is made with a great degree of chance. The energy, fisrt off, needed to move a string of positrons fast enough, is huge, second the actuall occurance of antimatter is so wildy spread that by our technology today we could not create enough of it to sustain any kind of reaction. Then consider the power needed to make a EM feild to contain the tiny amount of antimatter we have today. Then think about the perfect vacuum needed in addition to the EM feild.

The vacuum causes the largest problem, as if at any time, if even a microscopic crack or deformaty occured in the container holding the Antimatter. It alls go away, in one instant, nothing is left. This type of power, is more than a mere 50 years in our future. Unless we can find a way to stop time from happening. I say that because overtime, ANY material will get worn out, what happens when the antimatter container finally breaks? Sorry, Micah. but your not being very smart right now. this is just too far into the future still.

Correcting on a fe mistakes I didn't notice. the feild has to be much greater than 1000 amps.

Cillchaoi

It's not necessary to create a bucket full of antimatter for the purposes of energy production. One particle at a time is more than enough to sustain the reaction and produce energy. In Russia some years ago they had a portable nuclear generator that could be carried around behind a motorcycle. It used an isotope source to heat water and create stem to generate just under a kilowatt of electricity per hour. No need for another Chernobyl. It's like building a dam for your hydroelectric plant or just using a water wheel instead, small portions rather than big bites.

iamjoe56

University physics 101, 102, 103, and 104.

You never took basic math, did you. Read back, it's 1000 Amps of current used to focus the electron beam, not 100. Hmmm, wait, your CRT television or monitor bends electron beams with less than 100Amps of current.

http://www.hfml.ru.nl/froglev.html

Hovering a frog is pretty easy. Cyclotrons (like the one at the Triumph Research Center at UBC) contain heavier particles.

Ever used a Scanning Electron Microscope? I have. It pulls a near perfect vacuum is a about 30 seconds to allow the scanning of samples with a beam of electrons that is focused with 300-700 Amps of current.

And have you learned to spell yet? Apparently not.

Guess who isn't being very smart right now Dave.




http://www.sciencenewsdaily.org/story-108822085.html

Micah,

I see that you are trying to compare two technologies that are dissimilar. One is nuclear technology and the other is antimatter. Surely you understand the difference between the two. Nuclear power is something that we can create and harness quite easily because we can amass the amounts of reactants in large enough quantities to produce the size of reactions we require. That is not the case with antimatter.

Once again, the issue is whether it is a usable amount of energy. Creating one or two particles of antimatter for scientific study is one thing. Producing enough to provide a useful amount of power is something completely different and it is to that which I was commenting.

Once again, you blow things out of proportion when one tries to give more information than what you have provided. This is an area in which I do have knowledge, as I have studied Physics and have read articles and reports in this area over the years.

As I pointed out, the article that I read was only about a year ago. Sure, it is possible that by now a method to create a useful amount of antimatter has been found but I doubt it and it is not indicated by this article. If you know of an article or other source that can prove that the information I possess is outdated, then please provide it so I can read it and I will accept it.

A small number of antimatter particles will provide very limited power and, as that is the extent of our current technological capabilities, will not be up to the point of doing anything useful for a very long time because of the power constraints required to keep the antimatter particles isolated until the time it is to react and provide the desired burst of energy.

Yes, it is possible to create a small vacuum for an electron microscope but, once again, an electron microscope is not based on the technology that we are discussing: antimatter. Further, the requirements to contain an electron are much easier to obtain because it is not ready to explode with just any ol' particle that comes along, as antimatter will.

It's simply scientific speculation on the part of the researches involved.

The first gamma ray laser will be something the size of a van with massive cooling contraptions in order to have a 1/100th second gamma ray laser to burn a hole 50nm in diameter through a 50nm thick sheet of carbon.

And again, individuals are reading unwritten context into my words. We may have anti-matter power stations 50 years from now, or perhaps 20 or farther reaching to a century. I didn't say it was going to happen tomorrow, nor did I say it would work right away.

Splitting the figurative hairs or a conversation or piece of writing will always give you something to talk about. It also goes to illustrate some control issues of your own.

Would the world be a better place if you wre in charge? Yes or no?

Micah,

I see that you are in denial once again about the fact that you are given more information than you are willing to accept and that you are, once again, unwilling to accept that someone actually knows a bit more about a topic than you.

You are the one who said "a few years from now" in your article. The scientists working in the field of antimatter have stated in copious publications that it is much more than a few years away. Instead, we are looking at centuries more than likely because we do not have the technology to create (or even contain) large amounts of antimatter, which would be required to make it a viable power source. Creating and containing one or two particles is one thing but creating and containing an amount of antimatter that would permit the creation of a power station is something entirely different. That is the target from which we are very far away, as I have said repeatedly and you seem to keep missing.

As for your query about whether the world would be better if I were in charge, that is not a question that has any bearing on the topic and is yet another vain attempt to try to get me to break my composure. I am sorry but I am not willing to stoop to that level.

Okay, your answer is yes.

Okay, you like to split hairs and mull over minor the smallest details.

Step back once in a while and you'll step ahead so much further.

What the heck does a gamma ray have to do with anything? That has to do with radiation, not antimatter.

Micah,

Providing facts is not splitting hairs, though you seem to like to try to claim that it is. I provided the fact that it would take an inordinate amount of time to create a single kilogram of antimatter with the technology that we have today and the fact that it would take much more antimatter than a few particles here or there to make it a viable power source. You have tried to trivialize this because, I suspect, that it shows that someone has more knowledge than you on yet another subject.

Let's see if we can put this into terms that you can understand based on the technology that is at our fingertips today: electricity. Let's have the electrons of which electricity is composed represent the antimatter particles. For electricity to be a viable power source, could we create only one or two electrons and have them flow across the wires? No, of course not. That would not be a large enough supply to power even a single night light. To make it a true source of power, we need to be able to have a sustained reaction that provides enough power to drive whatever it is we require. To do that would take much more antimatter than what we are able to create today or in the foreseeable future.

As before, I will not stoop to your level and get into an immature name-calling match as you have done with Dave (aka iamjoe56) elsewhere on NeoSeeker.

Cillchaoi

When I wrote of the possibility for anti-matter power stations I was being speculative. Yes, it is a fact that creating anti-matter with current technology yeilds only a few anti-electron at a time, but in the perhaps near or far distant future a technology may be developed for the mass production of anti-matter and other technologyies for the safe conainment of such. Yes, your facts are valid and accepted, but the future has yet to happen.

I am also quite well versed in the fields of electronics and the physics underlying beneath. I've truged my way throgh all too many a formula and equation in the fields. But again, speculitivly speaking of course, some future technology may allow for a small generator that could pump out a million Amps of constant current flow with very little input, like zero-point energy (harnessing the energy that exists within the quantum state of existence). I'd like to know what it would be, but that's likely decades away, as is an anti-matter power plant.

iamjoe56

As is written in the closing sentences of my article, the researchers involved hope to create enough anti-matter in a homogenous quantam state to build a gamma-ray laser. When anti-matter is destroyed it emmits gamma-rays as a by-product, along with photons and heat. Yes, gamma-rays do constitute radation, but if any form of radation is focused it becomes a laser. Laser does stand for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. That radation can be light (visible and begine radation from the sun) or radio waves (electromagnetic radation) or gamma-rays (heavy radation to cause cancer and hair loss). Focused gamma-rays could be powerful enough to burn through steel near instantly, say in the fields or manufacturing or mounted to the gun deck of a battle ship.

But that's still decades away. Start small in the lab and then grow bigger in the world. Just don't put a gamma-ray diode in my DVD-ROM drive, unless it'll burn the SecuROM feature off my game disks.

I may not know exactly what I'm talking about here, but you seem to be missing Cillchaoi's point (as far as I can see it).

It is true that a future technology may allow for antimatter generators, you are the one that said we could generate energy one antimatter particle at a time, which even with my limited knowledge on the subject, I can tell is wrong.

Cillchaoi seems to know what h is talking about, and it also seems more then plausible that the energy used to hold the particles in a type of stasis to prevent them from touching matter would use more energy then was given back, as this would be a constant give-take relationship, with the reward not justifying the means.

There's a device called a Penning trap. It's a storage system for electrons and bozons that are used in cyclotrons to create new elements (the ones at the end of the periodic table with the minisicule half life and odd names). A Penning trap is a series of electromagnetic fields and electrical fields and sometimes include radio frequency fields that can hold charged particles in mid-air suspension within a vacuum to prevent contamination by touching other matter. The Penning traps are also super cooled as reducing the temperature of charged particles will slow their movement/activity. Penning traps have been around for more than a decade and have been used to contain small amounts of anti-matter for use in cyclotron experiments. They do require electrical power, but not hundreds of thousands of kilowatts. Penn State University has one that is about the size of a refrigerator.

As for the amount of energy that can be harnessed by an anti-matter reaction ...

Take the weight of both the matter and anti-matter and multiply it by the speed of light squared to get your answer in joules.

So a .00001 gram mix of matter and anti-matter would create (upon the explosion that you would have to somehow harness and contain) 1000000000000 (ten trillion) joules of energy. That over a quarter of a million kilowatt hours of energy. Your house uses about 1000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year. So, that 250 years worth of electricity for you right there.

As for the volume of anti-matter, the positronium method will greatly increase the amount of available anti-matter in the world which right not is less than the mass of a grain of sand. That's still trillions upon trillions of particles of anti-matter which could power the entire world for a century.

Containment isn't a problem and anti-matter does give back far more energy than what is used to create and store it. But we'll still have to wait several decades before getting a bill from the Anti-Matter Electric Company. It's important in labs and research right now to further explain quantum mechanics as the defraction of energy released can indicate as to the quantum state of matter, and further complicating the lives of high school students who now have to learn about bozons and quarks and other sub-atomic particles.

Okay, let's say that you do have .0001 grams each of electrons and positrons. How long did it take you to create it? The actual charge/mass measurement (the rest mass of the particle multiplied by the speed of light squared for those who do not know this term) of either particle is 9.11 x 10^-31 kg or 9.11 x 10^-29 g. To obtain enough to get up to 1 x 10^-5 is quite a bit. That is 109890109890109890109890.10989011 particles. It is the production of such a high number that is the problem. This is the point that I have made all along.

Further, containment of that large number of particles would require a massive amount of power and a gigantic containment device. In your own words, Penn State has a Penning trap that is about the size of a refrigerator to contain electrons and bozons at this time. How many does it hold? I seriously doubt that it is as many as 1.098 x 10^23. Let's assume for a moment that it would be large enough to handle, say, 1.098 x 10^20 particles, that still leaves 10^3 (1000) times as many particles to be contained to be able to use the numbers you suggested (0.0001 grams). Now, that would mean that the refrigerator-size Penning trap would have to grow to 1000 times its size to contain that many particles. The amount of cooling required for something like that (as you have said, it is super-cooled) is astronomical, as are the power requirements to do so. A normal (not super-cooling) and average home refrigerator uses about 500 watts of power to get temperatures down to about 0 Fahrenheit (aka -18 Celsius, 255 Kelvin, 459 Rankine). If you multiply that out for the theoretical refrigerator about which we are speaking, that would be 1000 times that amount of energy usage, or 500 Kilowatts just to get down to 0 Fahrenheit. To super-cool, it would be even higher. And that is what it would use every hour of the day that it was powered.

Now, more realistically, I am sure that the Penning trap you have mentioned contains nowhere near that many particles at one time, so the problem is exacerbated even further. Containing enough particles to produce any feasible amount of power at this time is not possible at this time, nor will it be possible at any time in the foreseeable future. Thus, the use of antimatter reactions to produce power is still probably centuries away.

Oops! I made one slight typo: it would be 9.11 x 10^-28 g, not -29. Still the math is the same.

Glotnot,

Thank you for your support. You have seen precisely what my point is, which is what Micah seems to miss. (He seems to have a habit of that if you happen to read other articles in which he and I have had discussions.)

While I think that Micah is a good person generally speaking (though, as can be seen in other discussions, he is not professional or ethical; contact me privately if you wish more details about this and links to the discussions in which these issues become obvious), he does seem to need to learn how to step back and actually see what he is missing before rebutting comments that give further information.

As you can see in my latest posts, his theoretical amount of antimatter is not achievable at this point in time. It is just too much mass for us to create, not to mention the requirements for the containment structure that would be needed.

He seems to enjoy looking at articles regarding technology but does not step back and understand all that is being read. This is why I interject further information so that people can see that while these advances in technology are wonderful, they are still only baby steps toward future goals.

OWWWW!! BRAIN HURTS>_<. Lol, just kidding.

Score one for Cillchoai. Ouch man. Talk about some brutal math!

Cillchaoi

N = 10^15 positrons takes about 10kv of electricity for extended containment; days, weeks, months and years. Smaller samples of materials are commonly used in Penning traps to observe the radioactive decay and the quantum fluctuation of the particles emitted by unstable isotopes.

There are penning traps out there that can hold .000000020 ng (nanograms) of positrons in suspension. This containment volume has actually doubled in the past 15 years or so while the infrastructure for such systems has been reduced significantly. Moore's Law for physics in a sense. Creating that ammount of anti-matter is quite fesiable at this time although no one labratory would want to fund one long term project that would have only one return when they could fund numerous other projects for a greater dollar return. Darn capitalism getting in the way of science!

So with billionth of a gram of a gram of anti-matter made in labs each year, production isn't an issue, containment certainly isn't an issue, even on the minute scale I had suggested.

Additionally, our sun and other stars create anti-matter on the order of a few kilograms per year through proton/carbon reactions. It would cost trillions to build some vessel to go and collect it, but humanity may start doing that if we ever get away from chemical propulsion.

And as for your inferences that my technical knowledge is wholly inferior to yours with the inference to my professionalism and ethics I have this response.

Look in the mirror.

Hinata2007

Math isn't that bad, it's just 10 numbers; 0 through 9, then they start repeating in a wholly predictable fashion.

iamjoe56

Maturity?

Micah,

At the Penn State website, the school to which you have referred most often, I have found a publication that stipulates quite plainly and clearly that we are unable to produce enough antimatter to allow a sustainable reaction as would be required for a power generation plant as we have discussed.

In that paper, they have stated that to power a “beamed core engine,” which is one that is based on the principle of “direct one-to-one annihilation and expulsion of antiproton and proton atoms,” up to 1000 grams of antimatter would be required. To put things in perspective, according to this paper, the power generated by reacting 100 milligrams of antimatter with an equal amount of matter would provide the same amount of thrust as the space shuttle currently generates with the fuel it carries on board (not the auxiliary tanks that are jettisoned). 100 milligrams providing only that limited amount of power is nowhere near the amount of reactant required to provide enough power to replace our current power plants with antimatter reactors to generate the electricity that is utilized by every home on the planet. Additionally, extrapolating from an article at PhysOrg.com dated April 17th, 2006, it would cost $2.5 billion to generate those 100 milligrams. This option is cost-prohibitive at this time, especially when one takes into consideration the limited amount of power obtained by that amount of antimatter.

Beyond this, it is not possible for us to generate enough antimatter at this time to come up with enough reactant to sustain a continuous reaction as would be required for a single power plant, let alone multiple power plants. The best that we can do is at the Fermi National Laboratory at which we can generate as much as 140 nanograms a year (assuming that they have finished constructing the main injector ring and recycling ring discussed in the Penn State publication). This is much less than what is needed for providing as much power as the space shuttle’s on-board tanks, let alone what would be needed for a power plant. Based on 140 nanograms a year, it would take 1 million years to generate 140 milligrams, which is more in line with the article that I read last year in Popular Science.

Further, containment and transportation is an issue. Yes, there are Penning traps that can hold the antimatter. Yes, they can hold a large number of particles for a limited amount of time. (The Penn State article has stated that their Penning trap can store antimatter particles for only up to a week.) However, they still require an enormous amount of power and there would need to be a way to keep it powered without a single nanosecond of failure while it was being transported. CERN over in Switzerland could dump all their antimatter into the pot along with Fermi but the problem is how to transport it. It would require a vast amount of landborne, airborne, or seaborne power generation while it was in transit. As for transfer from the CERN facility Penning trap to the transportation Penning trap and the reversal of the process at the destination, wherever it may be, that would be very difficult to insure that not a single particle of antimatter came in contact with matter. To be frank, once again, this is beyond our science at this time.

You have stated that the sun generates a few kilograms of antimatter each year. This may be true but what is the point? Am I to assume that you suggest that we send a mission (whether manned or unmanned) to the sun, a distance of approximately 93 million miles from the Earth, to retrieve this antimatter? Also, if this is what is proposed, how do you expect that we would be able to capture it? After all, it does not come out as a solid brick that one can just pick up and carry away. We would have to find a way to capture each emitted particle (or even as little as one out of every few particles) to obtain even a single kilogram. This would entail having some method with which to capture the particle at the point of creation, the surface of the sun. (The reason being that if we were elsewhere, we would be unable to capture the particle because it would already have contacted a matter particle and annihilated itself.) The last time I checked, we have nothing that can approach the sun without being melted, irradiated to death (in the case of organic life), or crushed by the intense gravity.

I don't question your understanding of science, as you seem to have a fairly good grasp of it, but I question your critical thinking.

Micah,


First off, what is wrong with me supporting Cillchaoi?

Second, that math is truly brutal. I have had enough issues with math in the past. Then to see that huge string of numbers. Wow. It sent my mind reeling, as I have not yet hit the level of mathematics. But, after reading through the rest of the post I began to understand it, now in what way does that bring the question “maturity?”?

I fail to understand why you feel the need to bring that up so much. I AM capable of learning, so show a little fortitude and correct me if I am wrong. Nothing more please. :-)

Again...OUCH MY BRAIN. Heh, I'm still having trouble with fractions:-P. I"m a second year accounting major:-P. But hey...

I've decided to go into a new career. One that will challenge me and give me a career that is cool...

Game Design^_^. So long stuffy cramped room full of computers and crap. Hello room stuff room full of...computers and crap...sigh... At least I will enjoy my new career.

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