Dark Matter, Will it be are next great leap ?

i seen this news posted on yahoo Yahoo Dark Matter

BOSTON — Big news in the search for dark matter may be coming in about two weeks, the leader of a space-based particle physics experiment said today (Feb. 17) here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. That's when the first paper of results from the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a particle collector mounted on the outside of the International Space Station, will be submitted to a scientific journal, said MIT physicist Samuel Ting, AMS principle investigator.

Dark Matter

Big Think : Michio Kaku Dark Matter

Correct me if i'm wrong but we could extract anti matter from dark matter ?

Anit-Matter Information

Wikipedia Overview of Anti-Matter

Sci Fi Science- Using Antimatter

Big Think : Michio Kaku The Search for Antimatter

Warp Drive Information

Nasa warp drive Concept Link
Wikipedia Overview of Warp Drive

[align=center]Nasa Warp Drive - Youtube Video[//align]

Dark matter is a fascinating concept,but frankly is theoretical at best with no methods of practical application. There are superheavy elements scientists have fused for short periods of time. I think those superheavy elements are much more reasonable for study and real-world applications.

EDIT: I see you posted your thoughts on the video now.

correct me if im wrong but we could extract anti matter from dark matter since how i understand it dark matter is a source for matter and anti matter ?
and the use for anti matter go wild when you dip in to it
i just want to have a friendly conversation of what people think!

reply to post by MrDarkPhoenix


Hi interesting thread. I thought so little was known about dark matter that predicting what it might be used for was impossible. I wonder if they have found much higher than expected numbers of a subatomic particles, associated with mass, than expected.

i cant wait to see the results if they make it open to the public and if we can collect dark matter enough of it to make it worth while for practical use's and study

people might laugh but from my point of view it but it like opening up a entire new field of science when we go to this step because so much that we been limited by would be possible now ?

You know how one the quantum lvl they can show atoms vanishing and reappearing?

well... what if darkmatter is those atoms when they vanish

almost like the refresh rate on a monitor, there is time when it is black/blank and time when it is drawn/picture

the universe could actually have a refresh rate

reply to post by hisshadow


it must have a really fast refresh rate to not be able to see it with the naked eye
but if they have dark matter longer then a second or if it turns out to be stable then the that theory would be out the door

most original idea i've heard yet


and yeah it would have to be fast, so does your lcd or your game wont be solid

I don't think so. Assuming the particle exists, it doesn't interact at all in any measurable way that could ever become practical. It could lead to some interesting physics and justify current quantum gravity models, but it highly unlike it could ever be used for anything practical, let alone power a warp-drive. For one, it has the same gravitational properties as baryonic matter.

The 'refresh rate' of the human eye is terribly slow, and also the spontaneous production and annahilation of particles at the quanta level has not been observed. It makes up part of theoretical loop calculations but I am aware of no experiment that has observed it.

Firstly on things being open, well if you search, dark matter data is not exactly a huge secret, though the data itself as taken by the experiments is not exactly downloadable. Much of this data is poured over by groups of scientists trying to understand each and every event they see. I don't mean to sound like an arrogant a**hole but if the general public wanted to take a look at this stuff, there would be little chance of doing so until the physicists are happy with the analysis that they have done. Remember we have dedicated years of our lives to producing these experiments, we get first shout when it comes to the data.

Plus the tools required for it are also quite complicated and have development teams of there own.

As for a use for dark matter? Well it seems doubtful at least in the near future, given that we have had such a tough time even detecting it, i think storing it and doing something useful with it is not exactly anything that exists in this reality. Science said the same of the neutrino, and we have as yet no real use for neutrinos either. Except maybe if you had an enormously luminous neutrino beam pointed at a nuclear reactor or something... Theoretically it could shut one down, but seriously, the intensity required is about 4-5 orders of magnitude higher than our best beams (probably even higher)

Originally posted by MrDarkPhoenix
correct me if im wrong but we could extract anti matter from dark matter

Lol that would be a neat trick, wouldn't it

Originally posted by MrDarkPhoenix
correct me if im wrong but we could extract anti matter from dark matter

I will correct you, and the answer is no, because we don't know yet what dark matter is. And even if it was say a WIMP, then no we still couldn't 'extract' anti-matter.

We can generate anti matter pretty easily. Just smack electrons into a target the key is to be able to generate a 1-ish MeV or higher gamma. When this gamma passes through a material there is a chance it will interact with an atom, and kick out an electron, and in the process produce a positron, the energy of the gamma is then carried away by both the electron and the positron. In order to collect it, you bend it through a magnetic field since + and - will bend in different directions.

It is a similar process for producing anti-protons

Easy easy easy... difficult part is storing the damn things

reply to post by ErosA433


the way i understand from cern is that they can make some kind of "anti-matter"
but it cost a large amount of money to do it!

reply to post by MrDarkPhoenix


It can be made with a actually quite a small accelerator, the issue is the storage.

There is an experiment at CERN that is trying to produce 'anti-hydrogen' that is an anti-proton and a positron bound to make an anti-hydrogen atom. The issue is making positrons and anti protons require you to accelerate them particles, the issue is slowing them down and storing. This process is referred to as cooling, and is a very very difficult process that has taken alot of research to achieve.