This technological breakthrough seems to be falling under the same smoke screen as nuclear weaponry capabilities. Antimatter is the highest source of energy known to man. It releases energy with 100% effiecency (Nuclear Fusion is 1.5% effeicient). CERN in Geneva, Switzerland is producing small portions on an atomic level, but as they finish their moderrn particle eccelerator under ground in a few years, they will be a ble to produce antimatter at a larger rate.

If you don't know much about it, antimatter cannot be found anywhere in nature, for if it did it would immediately annihalate with everything, including air. It has all the oposites of real matter, matter has negatively charged electrons, antimatter has positively charged, positrons. Antimatter can be contained inside a magnetic field.

My point is, this weapon, with a basketball sized sphere of antimatter could destroy the entire Rhode Island. This weapon is the beginning of the end, yet it is ignored by the masses. Inevitabilities usaully are!

The masses ignore antimatter because it doesn't exist.

Originally posted by nappyhead
The masses ignore antimatter because it doesn't exist.

You simply willed it out of existance? Or are you willing to back up that statement with some info or evidence? I would be interested to hear a counter-opinion on it.

Originally posted by whita

Originally posted by nappyhead
The masses ignore antimatter because it doesn't exist.

You simply willed it out of existance? Or are you willing to back up that statement with some info or evidence? I would be interested to hear a counter-opinion on it.

OOOh... I love debates

I shouldn't say it doesn't exist, but that it is improbable. There is not a scrap of actual evidence to prove that it does exist. You can't find anything to say there is even a hint-chance that it does exist.

The basic reason antimatter is even considered is this: scientists across the board have calculated that the Universe is missing mass. This is called the "Missing Mass Question." All of the studies on this show that the universe can't hold itself together as it does now with out this "missing mass." So the scientists invented this thing called "antimatter" to explain the problem away.

Me, being an avid creationist, have no problem with this. God holds the universe together.

This is just my little two cents.

Originally posted by AnAbsoluteCreation
Does anyone really understand antimatter?

- Think of it as being like matter but with the opposite qualites.



(sorry, couldn't resist.)

Originally posted by Chris McGee
One thing I do find interesting though is the idea to use an antimatter explosion to trigger a hydrogen bomb. As far as I understand it, at the moment a fission bomb is used to heat and compress the fusion fuel to a critical mass when fusion occurs. If you replace the fission part with an antimatter explosion, you remove fallout from the equation and you'd be able to build smaller bombs that could realistically be used in battle.

The fusion reaction still creates neutrons that are "irradiating" everything around. So you will not have plutonium or uranium falout, but the dust and sands would still be highly radioactive. And the pics of kids with cancer and mutations are still not godd for public opinion...

Originally posted by Chris McGee

Originally posted by nappyhead

No, you're confusing antimatter with dark matter.

Yeah I agree, from what I have read I think you are referrring to Dark Matter, nappyhead, which is still (?) theoretical.

Originally posted by longbow
The fusion reaction still creates neutrons that are "irradiating" everything around. So you will not have plutonium or uranium falout, but the dust and sands would still be highly radioactive. And the pics of kids with cancer and mutations are still not godd for public opinion...

As far as I understand it, there is a large difference between neutron radiation and the usually talked about electromagnetic radiation. Neutrons are not inherently radioactive and the damage they cause is primarily due to collisions with atomic nuclei.

A neutron burst wouldn't make anything radioactive, the danger only comes in the initial release. The cancer causing radiation (gamma rays and the like) is produced as a flash (prompt radiation) and through fallout (residual radiation). The prompt radiation lasts a very short time (<<1 second) while the residual radiation, which causes cancers and mutations and leaves the affected area radioactive, is caused by a fission reaction.

In the fission reaction, two radioactive nuclei are produced for every fissile nucleus split. These nuclei are then spread over a wide area by the explosion and through the atmosphere by wind currents before coming to rest on the ground. It is these still radioactive nuclei that remain in the ground around the point of detonation and wherever they have been spread emitting gamma radiation which causes the cancers and mutations.

So eliminating the fission reaction fro the equation would leave only the prompt radiation which lasts a very short time and the area affected by the bomb would not remain radioactive.

Know little or nothing about Antimatter.. but heard it's the power of power to be reconed with when it collides with matter. Also heard that the usual science can only capture 1-1000 of a gram per year under known technology. As for unknown technology (black budget) who knows, except Lazar..

Dallas

I hate to revive a dead thread, but has anyone played Front Mission 3? Spoilers.

There is a bomb in it, that is more powerful then a nuke, but has no residual radiation. So I assume that it was anti matter? Its just crazy that they put this kinda hidden info in games.

Originally posted by Chris McGee

Originally posted by longbow
The fusion reaction still creates neutrons that are "irradiating" everything around. So you will not have plutonium or uranium falout, but the dust and sands would still be highly radioactive. And the pics of kids with cancer and mutations are still not godd for public opinion...

As far as I understand it, there is a large difference between neutron radiation and the usually talked about electromagnetic radiation. Neutrons are not inherently radioactive and the damage they cause is primarily due to collisions with atomic nuclei.

A neutron burst wouldn't make anything radioactive, the danger only comes in the initial release. The cancer causing radiation (gamma rays and the like) is produced as a flash (prompt radiation) and through fallout (residual radiation). The prompt radiation lasts a very short time (<<1 second) while the residual radiation, which causes cancers and mutations and leaves the affected area radioactive, is caused by a fission reaction.

Neutrons aren't 'radioactive' in and of themselves. Nor are any other subatomic particles. It's the emission of these particles that makes a substance radioactive. Neutrons can (and do) however, make substances radioactive. When a neutron collides with a nucleus, it can be captured by said nucleus. If the nucleus is already on the edge of stability (Uranium or Plutonium being good examples), the capture may destabilize the nucleus, and cause it to split (or fission). If the capturing nucleus is a stable one, the capture will produce an isotope. Some of those isotopes have a nasty habit of being radioactive (Carbon 14 is a fairly well-known example). Point being that neutron flux (a side effect of both fission and fusion) can cause long-term radiation hazards.

In the fission reaction, two radioactive nuclei are produced for every fissile nucleus split. These nuclei are then spread over a wide area by the explosion and through the atmosphere by wind currents before coming to rest on the ground. It is these still radioactive nuclei that remain in the ground around the point of detonation and wherever they have been spread emitting gamma radiation which causes the cancers and mutations.

So eliminating the fission reaction fro the equation would leave only the prompt radiation which lasts a very short time and the area affected by the bomb would not remain radioactive.

Actually, alpha and beta radiation can cause cell damage or cancer, it's just hat they are more easily shielded against than gamma, and much lower in energy, which makes gamma the most likely cause. Eliminating the fission 'trigger' from a fusion weapon isn't going to make a meaningful difference in radioactive output...even removing 50% of the total dose from an initiation is going to leave enough to be lethal over a fair range.

Too bad America cancelled the SSC or we might have been able to find a way to increase the production of antimatter....to a slightly larger but still impossibly small amount.

Originally posted by The one?
Too bad America cancelled the SSC or we might have been able to find a way to increase the production of antimatter....to a slightly larger but still impossibly small amount.

Are you sure it was cancelled? Maybe it just went 'black'. Like all the other critically important 'failed projects'.

Antimatter is the same thing as ordinary matter, except traveling backwards in time.

Ask Mr. Feynman.

Originally posted by lpbman
Antimatter is the same thing as ordinary matter, except traveling backwards in time.

Ask Mr. Feynman.

I haven't really ever heard that. Antimatter can reside in the same realms of space-time matter can the only difference is that the properties of the actual atoms are all opposite to those of regular matter.

God I love physics class.

Anyways, Antimatter does not currently hold any merit for weapons because it is so hard to manufacture...in fact the process in which it is manufactured really involves chance more than anything; it is created in an accelerator and once in a while a piece of matter knocked off a target happens to be antimatter. While you can call it "production" of antimatter" what it really is is regular particle acceleration with the purpose of capturing any stray antimatter atoms that happen to fly off.

I heard that if all the antimatter ever produced on earth was gathered and used for energy there would be enough power to light a lightbulb for a few minutes. Not that much, eh?

That of course is with current technology.

The upside to antimatter is that it is so incredibly powerful that a basketball-sized sphere of it would most certainly do a helluva lot more than destroy rhode island were talking about obliterating it and vaporizing the ocean around it as well as blasting a hole deep enough to reach the mantle.

Remember that the best, most efficient nuclear weapons only convert 7% of their mass into usable energy, and the rest becomes radiation and other crap. On the other hand, antimatter converts 100% of its mass into energy without any biproducts.

Thus we have clean bombs that happen to be significantly smaller and more powerful than any other weapon ever imagined.

But IMHO antimatter will not be used for bombs, it will be used for propulsion. A spacecraft engine using antimatter would have to take very little and would still reach speeds well faster than any chemical propulsion available.