Mass production of Positrons (Anti-matter)

a reply to: Bornsecrets

i would rather see just one atom of anti matter can we start there?

This is from memory and my memory isn't as good as it once was.


1. The cost of producing antimatter is prohibitively expensive for mass production, using current technology.
2. Antimatter is incredibly unstable on Earth and must be contained in a magnetic bottle, in a complete vacuum.
3. A bucket full, 5 gallons of condensed solid antimatter, if allowed to contact any matter, including the bucket, would probably blow away most of the Earth's atmosphere.
4. An antimatter reaction would convert mater to energy at near 100% efficiency. A really good fusion device is about 4 to 6% efficient.

a reply to: Nickn3

Which goes to the OP. The speech by Kenneth Edwards hinted at a way to produce and contain antimatter that was far cheaper than every other method known. It was floating in the wild for awhile, until he gave the keynote for a group of scientists, and university types. Shortly after most references to his work disappeared.

originally posted by: Jonjonj
a reply to: chr0naut

No you completely misunderstand. It is Pandora's box level technology.

Sure it's not Plato's cave or Zeno's riddle level technology?

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: chr0naut

Which they would have been hard at work on in 2004. They would have had to be well into testing at the time the explosion happened. And it would have added time to the development. I've had several people tell me how convenient the timing was, as quite a bit of fairly high end plutonium was in the area of the blast, as were several of the people involved in developing the bomb.

Could these, possibly, be the same people who said that Saddam had significant WMD's?

Not saying it didn't happen but...

a reply to: chr0naut

No, they were far more reliable. Many other things I have been told by them over the years have borne out and been confirmed.

originally posted by: chr0naut

originally posted by: Jonjonj
a reply to: chr0naut

No you completely misunderstand. It is Pandora's box level technology.

Sure it's not Plato's cave or Zeno's riddle level technology?

Sure, if that saves the world, why not?

originally posted by: Bornsecrets
What if you had a bucket full of anti-matter? What would you do with this?

Who cares, it doesn't matter.


Thank you, I'll be here all week. tip your waitstaff .

a reply to: Bornsecrets

a bucket of antimatter would destroy the solar system and then some the second it touched the bucket.

I may be wrong, but wouldn't an infinitesimal amount of antimatter power the planet long into our extinction in theory?


VERY little would be near infinite power, if it didn't still blow up the planet the second it touched our atmosphere.

a reply to: tadaman

Nah, assuming a 20Litre bucket, so about 20KG of antimatter - it'd be a big boom/gamma ray burst, but not the solar system.

a reply to: tadaman

Mm, it's powerful but not THAT powerful.

Bananas contain a radioactive isotope of potassium which emits positrons.

They are immediately annihilated by electrons with a huge production of energy...but only proportionate to objects the size of electrons.

Which means nobody notices, and of course it's perfectly safe to eat bananas.

a reply to: CJCrawley

Didnt know that about bananas. So in a pinch can the old ncc 1701 use a banana as a make shift dilythium crystal? I could see an episode about that.

a reply to: BASSPLYR

A banana? One?

You'd need billions.

But, in theory, yes.

a reply to: CJCrawley

Dude they got replicators on board no problem!

As out there as the idea is, it does remind me of the suspected Directed Energy Weapons test that was photographed at Dugway proving ground.

Not long ago I read a PDF paper of a possible UCAV weapon system which used Anti-Mater to power the DEW I believe. While I don't (want) to believe they have a way to mass produce Anti-Mater, I wouldn't completely discount it either.

~Winter

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
a reply to: CJCrawley

Dude they got replicators on board no problem!

All they need is a replicator feedback loop. Instant and permanent dilithium factory.



I wonder if dilithium is actually positronium dioxide?

originally posted by: tadaman
a reply to: Bornsecrets

a bucket of antimatter would destroy the solar system and then some the second it touched the bucket.

I may be wrong, but wouldn't an infinitesimal amount of antimatter power the planet long into our extinction in theory?


VERY little would be near infinite power, if it didn't still blow up the planet the second it touched our atmosphere.

A bucket of antimatter annihilating would be equivalent to about 8 seconds of the output from the Sun. A big lot of energy, but not galaxy destroying.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: chr0naut

Developing the material and testing the device, starting from scratch takes years of development. If it was easy more than nation stateswould have them. They had to test all the parts, then put them together. You don't go to work in January, and detonate a device on your first try in April, even if you've already got all the materials.

They detonated their first device in 2006, and are still having issues with reliability with their current devices.

The first US nuclear test was Trinity which was a Plutonium based implosion bomb.

21 days later, the Hiroshima bomb, a totally different design, a Uranium based, gun assembled device, was detonated.

3 days after that, the Nagasaki bomb, a Plutonium based implosion device (but with a different design to the Trinity bomb, significantly lighter, smaller in physical dimensions and more powerful) was detonated.

The issue was in refining enough weapons grade nuclear fuels which took long periods of time to centrifuge. The reason for the different fuels is that they were separated at different places/angles from the centrifuge (due to different atomic weights) and were produced at the same time.

No years of development in the test-design-build-deploy cycle, it was days.

a reply to: chr0naut

The Manhattan Project began in 1939, with it really hitting its stride in 1942. Most of the cost was building the factories to build the fissile material, but they had over 30 sites across three countries working on the bomb design and production. They spent three years designing the weapon, as well as refining the fissile material before the first detonation in 1945. The work on different types of bombs had been going on for at least two years before the types were detonate. The designs took at least two years to perfect. You don't detonate one type of nuclear bomb, then suddenly go "hey, this works better" and change the design and have one in a couple of days.