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Creating anti-matter on Earth, is this a good idea?

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posted on Jun, 9 2008 @ 02:22 PM
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Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory or Fermi is making anti-matter some 30 feet below ground outside of Chicago.

This is from 1999


Batavia, Ill.- Scientists working at the Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory have announced a significant advance in the understanding of the difference in the way matter and antimatter behave. Moreover, the physicists, from Fermilab's KTeV experiment, said they were "shocked" at the size of the long-sought result they reported to a standing-room-only audience at a seminar at Fermilab on February 24. Indeed, there was an audible gasp from the audience of physicists when University of Chicago graduate student Peter Shawhan gave the group's observed value for a phenomenon called "direct CP violation."
Fermilab Physicists Find New Matter-Antimatter Asymmetry



On the other hand, we often create matter from radiation, or from an electromagnetic field. Under certain circumstances (in the presence of atoms or other media), it is possible that a photon will create a matter - antimatter pair (for example, an electron-positron pair). Fermilab uses this phenomenon to detect high-energy photons. When such a photon enters the detector, it creates an electron-positron pair which is easily detectable.
Photons at Fermilab, Matter and Antimatter



The international CDF collaboration at Fermilab has made the most precise measurement to date of the extremely rapid transitions between matter and antimatter. The experiment has found that certain B mesons spontaneously turn into their own antiparticle equivalents -- anti-B mesons -- and back again at a rate of three trillion times per second. The result agrees well with the Standard Model of particle physics and confirms yet again the existence of CP violation -- the reason why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe.
Fermilab probes matter-antimatter transitions


Well busy bees they are, but is this good? These experiments are testing the boundaries of physics basically If I'm right they are writing the rules of physics as they go along. This seems very dangerous to me.

Could instances like this be why aliens are interested in our species? Watch us to make sure we don't destroy the universe?



posted on Jun, 9 2008 @ 03:49 PM
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I think it incredibly presumptuous to believe destroying the universe is remotely within our power.

Hell, destroying the Earth is probably beyond our capability.... (the 25,000 mile circumference rock, not life)



posted on Jun, 9 2008 @ 04:01 PM
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I don't see why not. The technology doesn't exist to create enough antimatter to equal the explosive power of nuclear weapons (nor regular weapons yet, for that matter) I don't see this being used for anything but pure science. I'm sure a lot of physicists have all kinds of fun things they'd like to try on antimatter, but can't, because it runs about 100 quadrillion dollars per gram, an amount that would take 100 billion years to produce with current technology.

And a kilogram of antimatter is good for about 20-30 megatons, which, while impressive, isn't at cataclysmic; bigger nuclear weapons have been detonated, and did not really do any economically significant damage to the world. It really wouldn't be worth 100000 quadrillion dollars and 100 trillion years of effort at current rates.

Also: OF COURSE they're writing the rules of physics as they go. This is science It's kind of the damn point. If we knew everything about physics, we wouldn't be doing experiments. Natural cosmic events already throw particles and radiation around with more power than we could hope to, so we know it isn't going to end the universe.



posted on Jun, 9 2008 @ 06:37 PM
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I know that when anti-matter and matter come in contact with each other it creates a violent explosion. My question is how does one keep anti-matter seperate from matter on this planet or anywhere in this part of the universe where everything is made up of matter? Isn't the air around us made of matter, the various gas and dust particles? How would you keep a non microscopic amount of anti-matter from exploding upon creation?



posted on Jun, 9 2008 @ 10:33 PM
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reply to post by The13thTitan
 


You keep it magnetically suspended in a vacuum. It doesn't touch anything, so it can't annihilate.

Oh. and this link (admittedly from 1999), says that the cost to generate antimatter is over $60 trillion per gram. So they sure as heck aren't producing lots of it!

[edit on 9-6-2008 by nataylor]



posted on Jun, 9 2008 @ 11:53 PM
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Originally posted by The13thTitan
I know that when anti-matter and matter come in contact with each other it creates a violent explosion. My question is how does one keep anti-matter separate from matter on this planet or anywhere in this part of the universe where everything is made up of matter? Isn't the air around us made of matter, the various gas and dust particles? How would you keep a non microscopic amount of anti-matter from exploding upon creation?


Antimatter is kept in magnetic "bottles" in high vacuum chambers. I restate: There isn't a threat of a major explosion; it's so hard to make the stuff by modern methods that you'll never really have enough of the stuff to make for a noticeable bang. Antimatter annihilation is the most powerful reaction known to man, but if there's only an unbelievably tiny amount, not much is going to happen. still, it's expensive stuff, and you don't want it annihilating itself on some stray protons. kind of defeats the point of making the stuff.



posted on Jun, 14 2008 @ 04:03 PM
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The even worse thing is that CERN is creating black holes on earth, i think both are stupid ideas



posted on Jun, 14 2008 @ 10:58 PM
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Originally posted by SwordDancer
The even worse thing is that CERN is creating black holes on earth, i think both are stupid ideas


They keep telling us it is safe, but that is assuming we know all we need to know about physics, but we don't.

One wrong piece of the puzzle and we are doomed.

One unaccounted for variable, or law we are unaware of then what?



posted on Jun, 14 2008 @ 11:21 PM
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Originally posted by The13thTitan
I know that when anti-matter and matter come in contact with each other it creates a violent explosion.



So how do you know this? I would have thought logically that a positive + a negative of anything would equal a 'neutral' - not lots more 'positive'.

Duncan



posted on Jun, 15 2008 @ 09:30 AM
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When they meet they annihilate each other, and they both have mass, so all that mass gets turned into energy in the form of high energy gamma rays, neutrinos, pions, etc. However, more than half of the energy released will be in the form of neutrinos, which doesn't really interact with anything, so only about 40% or so in the form of gamma rays will be able to do damage, and that's assuming that there's enough matter surrounding the bomb for the gamma rays to be absorbed and turned into heat/kinetic energy.



posted on Jun, 15 2008 @ 09:44 AM
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reply to post by nexusmagazine
 


In simple terms, imagine a "+" mass and a "-" mass canceling each other out. As mass and energy are interchangeable, according to E=MC2, the result of canceling out the mass would be a huge release of energy. It doesn't just disappear.



posted on Jun, 15 2008 @ 10:26 AM
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It sound really scary if containment and or duration concerns are not paramount

But then I heard somewhere people are trying to create tiny little black hole's in a lab some where as well



posted on Jun, 15 2008 @ 10:32 AM
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reply to post by The Utopian Penguin
 


Even if containment failed, the minute amount of antimatter-matter annihilation that would take place would probably have trouble heating a thimble of water. It's really nothing to worry about!

As for the "black holes" thing , they too (if they were EVER to be actually created) would be soooo small that it would take them billions of years to consume enough matter to be a threat, by which time they would have evaporated anyway or otherwise disappeared due to a lack of mass to hold it together....



posted on Jun, 15 2008 @ 10:51 AM
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I'm pretty sure everyone involved in the Philadelphia experiment though
everything was going to go smoothly as well.

Tesla is god

but unforeseen consequence or some cascade effect might end it all



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