Antimatter Weight Question

I have been thinking about antimatter for quite a while. It is effectively the exact opposite of matter. Positrons, Negatons, and so forth. If the graviton theory is in effect, wouldn't antimatter therefore have "negative weight" considering it would make "negative gravitons"? Be repelled by itself instead of attracting itself?

To all you super-physicists out there...

Not necessarily. Anti-matter only has opposite charges. Instead of a negatively charged electron flying around a nucleus of neutrons and positively charged protons, you have a positively charged positron flying around a nucleus of neutrons and negatively charged particles.

However, they have produced "anti-hydrogen", and a few other "anti" elements. It's not known, though, whether these elements behave the exact way as normal matter, but it is suspected that anti-hydrogen has the same properties as regular hydrogen.

It was once thought that the massive lack of antimatter in our universe is because two universes were created - one matter, and the other anti-matter. However, unless they interacted with each other, you'd never know. Some even postulated that within our own universe there's anti-matter galaxies.


Anti-matter should behave exactly like normal matter, the only difference being their electric charges, and that if the two should ever meet, they annihilate each other.

As for what do scientists think about the "anti-universe" theory now? Currently they think that for the first little while after the big bang, when there was only energy, that virtual particles and anti-particles were being created all the time, kinda like Hawking Radiation, before promptly meeting another anti-particle and annihilating each other. As the universe expanded though, energy had more room in the universe to travel in, and so the temperature of the universe slowly began to drop. Eventually it passed a critical threshold where these virtual particles would no longer be created. As fate would have it, matter particles existed in just a SLIGHTLY greater number than anti-matter particles, and when the universe "thawed out", it was matter that was dominant.

Of course, you can always say to yourself "maybe WE'RE anti-matter" - but since there's no scales by which to judge, whatever matter is our matter is regular matter, and whatever matter annihilates our matter is anti-matter.


So, short answer, no. These protons and anti-protons are just made of two different quarks, which both obey the same laws of gravity, and so there shouldn't be anything like a "anti-graviton", if gravitons do exist (which I am starting to think do not).

If gravitons don't exist, then what creates gravity? Intermolecular London Forces don't have the strength to produce such vast, strong fields.

A better question would be... What is the mechanism by which a Vacuum can be warped by a mass?

Another one is... What is a Vacuum composed of that gives it the property of being able to be warped by a mass?

Anyone who can give me a satisfactory answers deserves a Nobel prize btw

Isn't it the curvature of space-time? Mass bends space, the heavier it is, the more it bends. Mass moves along the curves of space like a marble is attracted to a bowling ball both being situated on a tort sheet of rubber?



A vacuum is composed of dimensions, the 4th one being the one that is affected by mass to create the effect of gravity.


What about this question: If mass bends space around itself to create a kind of 'dimple' in space that attracts other mass, is there something that creates a 'bulge' or 'bump' in space where matter literally 'rolls' away from it?

Like in the 2D sheet example, instead of a bowling ball leaving an imprint in the rubber, something that can make a bump in it, like something pushing from the other side? Anti-matter?

That's how it works, it doesn't answer the question of what the discrete mechanism at work here actually is. Some have postulated Gravitons, others have come up with Quantum Foam, etc. No one has satisfactorily answered that question as of yet. Trick question which at this time is impossible to answer with 100 % certainty.



That doesn't explain exactly how it is possible, for something that is essentially nothingness to bend and twist in the presence of a spinning mass.

Essentially you're asking "what makes up space?". Is it impossible for it to be nothing? The warpage is something that's odd - it's the way that light travels that we can infer that the space there is warped. A rocket may go up, but it doesn't go straight up. The reason we can tell it's not going straight up is because we can see it bending into a curve.

But if this curve bent into a direction that we couldn't see, if the rocket appeared to go straight up, but really bent in a direction parrallel to our view (and so we couldn't see the curvature) we could only tell that it wasn't going straight, because as it would rise into the air it would appear to slow down - in reality it's still speeding up, but in a direction that's not viewable. It's 2-d movement has been altered.

Now, what was warped in that example? The space around the rocket? Or the path the rocket took?

The answer is the latter - the path that the rocket took was warped. In the same way, the path that something takes when near a source of gravity is warped in a direction we cannot see, but which can visibly affect it's 3-d movement.

Now, as for what makes this happen, I'm one of the oldie fans of gravity being a field - much like a magnetic field. A Magnetic Field does NOT have an equivilant to the graviton. It does have electrons and protons, but these create a field around them that will electrically charge anything that comes in range. Mass itself, according to the old school, produces a field that affects other masses.

The real question is, how fast does information about gravity travel?

If it travels faster than light (ie, instantaneously), then that breaks some laws of physics. If one had sensitive enough equipment, they could recieve a message from lightyears away instantly.

If it doesn't travel faster than light, merely at the speed of light, then that poses other problems for current theories of how galaxies and stars form.


I subscribe to the former of these two because, as of yet, there's nothing that's proved it wrong, and it just makes things easier. I keep an open mind, of course, to the possibility of the other - but I also admit that it would mean that the theories on the universe's origins would have to be altered - significantly.

Good questions. I want those answers too. Prize is on the table.

Yarium,

I believe that this statement is wrong. I'm too lazy to look it all up right now, but I'm fairly certain that the particle that "carries" the electromagnetic force is the photon.

In fact, the Standard Model accounts for the "carriers" of all the forces, and the graviton is the last of these particles it predicts that has not been found.

Harte

You sure? Because we're not emiting photons that travel in a circle around us. I know that, technically, an atom on one side of the universe can affect an atom on the other side of the universe through its electric field. Electromagnetism is different - and yes the photon is its carrier - but a simple magnetic field, or an electric field, is not quite the same. The two forces are related (electro-magnetism), but their effects in such a way are different.

In a sense, yes, the electron and the proton are the carriers of the electric field - but they produce the field, not travel through it.

In the same way, the "graviton" may be the "positive" or "negative" charge of mass (instread of charge of electricity) that stays in the mass already contained in matter, and produces a field that warps space-time. Now, the quick step to take on this is that it's possible that gravitons don't exist, but that this is a property shared by all fundamental particles, and as such, an anti-particle would also share this property.

Now, if you consider our bending of space-time to be a "positive" charge, then is it possible to have a negative gravity charge? Yes. Would it be an anti-particle? No. It would be a whole new set of particles, very similar to our own, that would have that difference. Perhaps they even would annihilate each other on contact, but also such a particle (being the opposite in both space AND time) may not even travel through time the same as our positively gravity charged particles.


On a side note, a "negative" gravity charge would be interesting - and would appear to repel objects away from it. However, the further from it you were, the softer the push would be. Such negative gravity charges could create white-holes... something impossible to touch, and from which no information would escape, since no signal could be sent into it (light travelling close to the singularity's surface would be deflected away). How could such a thing form? Well, it'd have to be formed by these negatively gravity charged particles - but since the closer these particles get, the more they'd repel each other, you could never force enough of them into one place in order to create this.

Perhaps that's how I can prove that anti-particles have the same gravity "charge" - because they annihilate other particles. An anti-particle would push all other particles away from it, and so would seem to fall out of existance as it wouldn't want to react with any other particles. Since this is not observed, we can summise that it does share the same gravity "charge".

Like I said, too lazy to get too far into it. Particle physics!

Anyway, it's my understanding that it's improper to talk about fields and particles in the same context. If you wanted to say something about the "field" created by a magnet, then you are by definition omitting the particle explanation. Combining the two is only confusing the matter.

I understand what you mean by the proton and electron "creating" the field. But the electromagnetic force, in particle physics, is "carried" from one particle to another particle by some "carrier". In the EM case, I think it's the photon - I'm almost sure of it. In the case of the gravitational force, it's the graviton. BTW, it's also useless to talk simultaneously about gravitons and gravitational fields. These are two seperate ways of explaining the same thing.

You know, there are two other forces. In particle physics, these forces (weak and strong nuclear forces) are also "carried" by some "carrier" particle. There's too many particles for me to talk anymore about the situation!

Harte

Really? I thought they were kinda just there (like fields)... I don't see how a particle can run into something and cause it to move closer.

And you're right - particle physics is confusing, and we're probably getting into stuff that's far too in advance of what either of us understands properly.

So true. I imagine you'd have to actually be involved in research for you to be able to juggle all this in your head all the time.

It's like foosball, if you want to get good at it, it takes years of playing. If you wanna get lousy at it, it takes a couple of months away from the game!

Harte

I never understood this-WHY can't anything travel faster than light? Rhetorical question, but if anyone has an answer, glad to hear it it.

The following is my theory. It is in no way endorsed by anyone really credible, but I choose to believe this because nothing has been either proven or disproven.

Let us assume that gravity takes the form of a graviton. It has a field of some sort. Except gravitons are attracted to each other. But the gravitons are really small;really really really small. Far tinier than an electron (quark theory notwithstanding-I have yet to find rock-solid, unrelenting proof of quarks). These gravitons possess a field that isn't strong, but it extends incredibly far. The effect of these fields is cumulative, and all particles have gravitons within their nucleus/orbiting them/elsewhere. These gravitons are also attracted to the matter in which it is embedded (the nucleus of the atom). So when the gravitons are attracted to each other the atom goes along with it. But we can't detect the gravitons because they're so small we have no instruments precise enough to detect them. Not even electron microscopes can detecet gravitons because the gravitons are smaller, see? Hence- gravitons clump together bringing atoms with them. So theoretically if atoms can create gravitons, antimatter might be able to create antigravitons.

This is my theory-I am not telling or even asking you to believe it, it is only my take on what we don't yet understand.

Is this testable in the real world?

Observing more and more invididual star systems and galaxies with better and better telescopes over the decades and many thousands of hours of analysis and then using the findings to refine our models, already I hear the rumblings of discontent with the Standard Model of planet formation and solar system evolution.

My hunch is that gravity, despite it being such a difficult force to detect, model, or even understand in a complete context, abides by the lightspeed limit in this universe. If it's true that the main reason why it's so weak is that they float off of our brane almost instantly and travel to ... what exactly is not exactly known or even that is how Gravitons behave(or if they even exist!), but some theories postulate that Gravitons hop from brane to brane, and that a lot of Dark Matter is actually a similiar partical floating up from another brane just "below" ours. No real way to test that theory though as of yet.

If you want to learn more, from a laymans perspective on String Theory and M-Theory, then by all means head on over to this PBS link with a 3 hour show on the subject for free!

www.pbs.org...