Antimatter discussion

Does Antimatter have mass or anti- mass or something like that ?
Is it a solid, Liquid, gas or something else ?
Basically how does it look like ?

Antimatter is an extremely complicated subject to delve into. The scientific community all have varying ideas of the properties of AM. I have a link from the CERN Institute that will help with understanding AM and its usage, as well as the history and theory behind AM.

livefromcern.web.cern.ch...

Matter and antimatter are identical. Looking at an object means seeing the photons coming from that object; however, photons come from both matter and antimatter. If there were a distant galaxy made out of antimatter, you couldn't distinguish it from a matter galaxy just by seeing the light from it.

I hope this helps you.

anti matter looks just like regular matter but with the oppsite charge .
our matter has negtive charged electrons and postive charge protons .
anti matter is oppsite other then that the same anti gold would look like gold and so on . as a matter of fact theres no such thing as anti matter just opsite charges of matter .
if we lived in a system with positive charged electrons and negitive charged protrons it would make no difference to us except that negtivly charged electrons would then be antimatter.

Anti-matter isn't complicated whatsoever.

You should just google it.

Read 'angels and demons' by Dan Brown, although its fiction and describes what anti-matter will be like in a couple of decades when we can control it it provides alot of information but I'm guessing you've already read it and thats what got you interested in the subject? And if anti-matter isn't so complicated TJ how come we can't control it?

[edit on 20/5/05 by Atomix]

I'm going off of a poor memory here from stuff I studied about 5-6 years ago. Even that wasn't exactly college level, but just what I could find...Anyways

Originally posted by Simcity4Rushour
anti matter looks just like regular matter but with the oppsite charge .
our matter has negtive charged electrons and postive charge protons .
anti matter is oppsite other then that the same anti gold would look like gold and so on .

This is a simplification, and if I'm not mistaken partially incorrect. It isn't the protons or electrons that are oppositely charged per se, but the particles that make them up. If I remember right, electrons and other leptons aren't made up of any further particles, so I don't know where to go on that end. But protons and neutrons are made up of quarks, which have a "spin" (not a descriptive property, just the name the physicists gave to it for whatever reason.) When you have a particle made of quarks with exact opposite spin, you get the anti-particle. I think a proton is made of two "up" quarks and one "down" quark. If you "make" a particle with two "down" quarks and an "up" quark, you now have an anti-proton. I may be completely off base on the quark composition here, but the underlying principle is what I'm trying to get across.

as a matter of fact theres no such thing as anti matter just opsite charges of matter .

Matter with opposite charges (as I described above at least) is anti-matter. That's the name we've given it. We could call it "magic mystery particles from beyond". That's merely semantics.

One thing I've always been curious about is why annihilation takes place. I know that it does--a proton and an anti-proton hit each other and sparks fly. But for what reason? I'm sure it has nothing to do with charge; a proton and an electron don't make a bang with they collide, at least not that I'm aware of. Anyone know?

It'd be complicated to control anti-matter, but what anti-matter is isn't complicated. It behaves like ordinary matter, that's not very complicated.

Originally posted by T_Jesus
It'd be complicated to control anti-matter, but what anti-matter is isn't complicated. It behaves like ordinary matter, that's not very complicated.

Actually it is identical to matter. It just has an opposite charge. And if you dont think matter is not complicated, try taking a class in quantum physics. Think small.

Considering I've already taken quantum mechanics at the undergraduate and graduate level, I don't think you have much room to tell me to take a course.

As I said, the concept of matter/anti-matter isn't hard to know. I didn't say anything about quantum mechanics being easy.

Originally posted by T_Jesus
Considering I've already taken quantum mechanics at the undergraduate and graduate level, I don't think you have much room to tell me to take a course.

If you actually had the class you would understand the relationship between matter and quantum mechanics. You would also understand the complexities involved and the unanswered questions in quantum mechanics that make matter a difficult and complex topic.

If it was easy, they would teach it in grade school, which they dont.

To me, it seems to be more a question of why the Universe should possess chiral properties in the first place. Matter/AM is really just a question of which side of the mirror one stands. We happen to stand on the same side as the rest of the universe. It only has one side. How odd.

-shakes head

I'm not going to get into an argument with you over this. You're not reading what I'm saying.

If you'd like my notes, textbooks, grades - let me know.

Originally posted by Kidfinger
Think small.

As said, anti-matter is in NO WAY DIFFERENT in behavior from "regular" matter. There's just less of it, which is why everything we know if is made of matter.

Matter is very complicated stuff, that just all gets simplified when there's a lot of it.

Originally posted by T_Jesus
-shakes head

I'm not going to get into an argument with you over this. You're not reading what I'm saying.

If you'd like my notes, textbooks, grades - let me know.

No need for your notes and grades. I have my own for physics as well as many others here on ATS. Amorymeltzer included. I am also holding down a 3.7 gpa. Trust me when I say that in no way is matter simple. Only if you ignore the small picture can you say the big picture is simple.

Now a little more about Anti Matter:

Each elementary particle has a special partner called its anti-particle that has the same mass but the opposite electric charge. For matter particles with non-zero charge, the particle and its anti-particle are two distinct objects that can be told apart in experiments. (snip) If a particle has zero charge, then it may be its own antiparticle (an example is the photon or quantum of light, and the Z0, the neutral quantum of the weak force).

physics.bu.edu...

Anti matter begins with the smallest of constructs just the same as matter. It is physical and you see it. It reflects light just as matter would. Now I think there may be some confusion as to wether Anti matter and Dark matter are one in the same. The answer is yes and no.

Here is some info on Dark Matter.

Dark matter (DM) candidates are usually split into two broad categories, with the second category being further sub-divided:

* Baryonic
* Non-Baryonic
- hot dark matter (HDM) and
- cold dark matter (CDM),

depending on their respective masses and speeds. CDM candidates travel at slow speeds (hence "cold") or have little pressure, while HDM candidates move rapidly (hence "hot").

astron.berkeley.edu...

The truth about dark matter is we dont really know what it is made of. But assuming it is matter, it has an opposite charged counterpart. The questions begs: is Anti Dark Matter defined as white matter?

Back to Anti Matter. As exotic as AM sounds, it really is around us all the time.

Antimatter sounds like the stuff of science fiction, and it is. But it's also very real. Antimatter is created and annihilated in stars every day. Here on Earth it's harnessed for medical brain scans.

"Antimatter is around us each day, although there isn't very much of it," says Gerald Share of the Naval Research Laboratory. "It is not something that can be found by itself in a jar on a table."

(snip)

Simply put, antimatter is a fundamental particle of regular matter with its electrical charge reversed. The common proton has an antimatter counterpart called the antiproton. It has the same mass but an opposite charge. The electron's counterpart is called a positron.

We use it every day in hospitals. PET scans and other forms of internal visualization of the patient, harness antimatter to help with building and interior picture of the patient.

Starting to sound a little less like sci-fi and a little more like sci-ence. Anti matter has a stigma attached to the name because of many things. Hollywood probably being the largest falicy maker of all. But the containment of Anti-matter plays a part as well. As of now we only have the technology to contain minute amounts of it. We can also only manufacture small amounts at the present as well. CERN will probably be changing all this soon though. Keep an eye on them. They have been working on some very intresting things for the last 6 years.

One last quote about anti matter and I am going to end this. This really breaks it down.

n Earth all antimatter that exists is counted in individual atoms. Low energy positrons are routinely used in a medical imaging technique called Positron Emission Tomography as well as studies of important materials used in electronics circuits. These positrons are the result of the natural decay of radioactive isotopes. While useful in medical and materials research applications, there are not enough of these anti-electrons to provide a useful form of rocket fuel. High-energy antimatter particles are only produced in relatively large numbers at a few of the world's largest particle accelerators. The current worldwide production rate of antimatter is on the order of 1 to 10 nanograms (billionths of a gram!) per year.

science.nasa.gov...

And a few links to check out:

www.space.com...
www.unmuseum.org...
news.bbc.co.uk...
www.sfgate.com.../c/a/2004/10/04/MNGM393GPK1.DTL
www.metacrawler.com...



[edit on 5/22/05 by Kidfinger]