Anti-matter manufacturing and fabrication.

CERN has been making the stuff for decades and has only produced a few Picograms, thats a trillionth of a gram. At current production rates it would take billions of years to make a gram.

The cost of creating antimatter is astronomical--an estimated 62.5 trillion dollars per gram! ( $ 1.75 quadrillion an ounce )

So we aint going to be making the stuff in large amounts for a very long time.

Think of it this way,
If you have a gram of antimatter, it can only neutralise (make dissapear) one gram of matter.

Its not at all dangerous, and contrary to the popular belief that the reaction creates a mass ammount of energy, I feel that the claim is bogus.
Why? Because any amount of antimatter will have the same anti-energy potential as the equivelant amount of matter does with its enerhy potential... if you follow through, one gram of matter, hitting one gram of anti-matter eqauls... nothing happens, both simply dissapeared.

But be carefull, it is still speculated that if these anti matter such forces come in contact with matter there will be an extreme amount of explosive force, handling this material is tricky and dangerous.... its all about energy and control

Its not at all dangerous, and contrary to the popular belief that the reaction creates a mass ammount of energy, I feel that the claim is bogus.l

The collision would convert 100% of each substance into Radiant Energy which we could hypothetically harness. It's the release of energy from this M+AM interaction that interests me the most. It's the only way known to get 100% energy conversion, not even a black hole gets up that high. Of course we have to subtract the amount of energy it took to create this energy source and that could reduce it's performance somewhat. Right now the amount of energy release from a collision at the amounts that we're creating them today, is so minute that we barely detect it.

www.nasa.gov...
"A rough estimate to produce the 10 milligrams of positrons needed for a human Mars mission is about 250 million dollars using technology that is currently under development," said Smith.

sardion2000 is right a anti-matter reaction would be a 100% percent conversion of matter into energy. The best fusion reactions we have ever created H-bombs and the like have never exceeded 12% conversion matter to energy that I know of.

That makes anti-matter the perfect energy storage systems if nothing eles. Even if we can never produce anti-matter at a net gain of energy it would still be incredibly uselful energy storage medium for say space travel. You could launch the shuttle with a penny weight of anti-matter 60 times. Compared to 60 of those huge tanks of chemical fuel.

Heres a cool program that will show you just how powerful anti-matter reaction are.
Anti-matter calculator
For example 1 ton of antimatter would create a blast equal to 39,040 megatons

But you have to keep in mind only 50% of the total energy you get in that is thanks to anti-matter the other 50% percent is thanks to the normal matter it reacts with. Without any normal matter to interact anti-matter would be as stable as any normal matter on the planet.

Matter-antimatter reactions often are far less than 100% efficient, at least in terms of it happening where you would like it to.

If a particle actually interacts with its counterpart, then yes, you get 100% conversion right there.

But that's a big 'if'. Usually what will happen is that you get the first bits starting to interact at the edges where the antimatter is introduced to the reactant matter, and then all hell breaks loose. The matter and antimatter are pushed away from each other, you get pockets of compressed antimatter and matter that are driven away from each other by the reaction. The anti-matter tends to form sort of tiny boluses that are shrouded by an incredibly active ambiplasma which stops the reaction by 'insulating' the antimatter from contact with normal matter.

If you were just trying to make a 'bang' then toss it in, but don't expect the antimatter to stay in one tight area or happen all at once. It will actually go all over the place and react in a series of fast smaller explosions as the ambiplasma collapses and exposes the antimatter, then reforms.

If you were trying to make, say, a reaction drive out of it, then you will get a lot less than 100% efficiency as most of it will be vented as ambiplasma-shrouded raw antimatter.

Its the only energy source with a 1:1 ration. A gram of Anti-matter touching the ground would create a huge sphere of light that would incinerate 12 square city blocks. Picture a sphere of light expanding and then collapsing in on it self, leaving a huge crater behind.

CERN is in Scotland, and they have made the most so far. Atomic energy needs to be used to it's full potential first. Besides bombs. Plasma engines need matter to contain the high heat. Titanium would melt.

Originally posted by Tom Bedlam
If you were just trying to make a 'bang' then toss it in, but don't expect the antimatter to stay in one tight area or happen all at once. It will actually go all over the place and react in a series of fast smaller explosions as the ambiplasma collapses and exposes the antimatter, then reforms.

If you were trying to make, say, a reaction drive out of it, then you will get a lot less than 100% efficiency as most of it will be vented as ambiplasma-shrouded raw antimatter.

Im not sure if I follow you. So your saying if I had a gram of anti-matter in a magnetic field and all of a sudden dropped that field on a planet which is a huge soup of matter the reaction wont be localized? I have havent heard many scientist suggest such a effect. Ambiplasma is after all only a hypothetical plasma

This reaction happens in the smallest fraction of a second and 1 gram of anti-matter would only need to contact 1 gram of matter. On the earth that wouldnt be very hard at all since everthing on the planet is made of matter even the air we breath.

The way I understand it this reaction would happen way, way to fast to be effected by any hypothetical plasma effects of a explosions. Its like thinking your not going to get a full yeild for a nuclear weapon because parts of the uranium in the weapon will be blown away before the nuclear reaction will take place. We know the nuclear reaction happens far to fast to be effected by any explosive effects that might occur to the nuclear fuel.

Originally posted by ShadowXIX

Originally posted by Tom Bedlam
If you were just trying to make a 'bang' then toss it in, but don't expect the antimatter to stay in one tight area or happen all at once. It will actually go all over the place and react in a series of fast smaller explosions as the ambiplasma collapses and exposes the antimatter, then reforms.

If you were trying to make, say, a reaction drive out of it, then you will get a lot less than 100% efficiency as most of it will be vented as ambiplasma-shrouded raw antimatter.

Im not sure if I follow you. So your saying if I had a gram of anti-matter in a magnetic field and all of a sudden dropped that field on a planet which is a huge soup of matter the reaction wont be localized? I have havent heard many scientist suggest such a effect. Ambiplasma is after all only a hypothetical plasma

This reaction happens in the smallest fraction of a second and 1 gram of anti-matter would only need to contact 1 gram of matter. On the earth that wouldnt be very hard at all since everthing on the planet is made of matter even the air we breath.

The way I understand it this reaction would happen way, way to fast to be effected by any hypothetical plasma effects of a explosions. Its like thinking your not going to get a full yeild for a nuclear weapon because parts of the uranium in the weapon will be blown away before the nuclear reaction will take place. We know the nuclear reaction happens far to fast to be effected by any explosive effects that might occur to the nuclear fuel.

The first reaction tends to form a shielding plasma around the antimatter that keeps the matter away for a short time. Think sprinkling water on a pancake griddle. Remember, it's not one gram of antimatter meets the first gram of matter that comes along and you're done. The antimatter will only annihilate its counterpart, and most antimatter is monoparticulate. So you have a gram of positrons, or anti-protons or what have you. When it mixes with terrene matter, it will only annihilate that fraction of particles. So if you drop a picogram of positrons into a bucket of water, the protons and neutrons are not annihilated, and the electrons and positrons have to actually come into contact to do so. That isn't instantaneous. Meanwhile, where annihilation IS occurring is going to be very hot, creating a plasma of non-annihilated particles that will not react with the anti-matter, and which expands INTO the antimatter (assume it tends to stay together for the moment). This is where the shielding plasma comes from. During that phase the stuff tends to get blown into a lot of smaller bits that are scattered, each with its own ambiplasma. It wants to disperse anyway, unless it's electrically neutral. So as soon as the ambiplasma begins to disperse, it wants to expand into the surrounding matter due to mutual repulsion. Again, it encounters its counterpart and forms another spherical plasma which compresses it back (or slows the scattering). So you get this pulsing detonation.

Dropped on the surface of the earth, sure, it's going to eventually react completely but not all at once, and not in one point location. I don't know if I've ever seen any analysis of how far it scatters. But it's one of those things the antimatter reaction drive guys have to worry about. I take it you have to have a lot of reaction mass and scatter the antimatter into it far and wide to get decent efficiency. Most of the thrust is from the hot excess matter escaping and not from the gamma rays the antimatter reaction produces.

Actually, with the nuclear reaction thing you are wrong also, the mass is scattering itself as the reaction proceeds. That's how you get "dial-a-yield", you initiate before the neutron gain factor is at its maximum. There's a rule-of-thumb design rule set that tells you how many multiplications you get before the assembly comes apart too far to continue reacting based on shape, density, what you're using for fissile material and so on. Also the tamper density.

I don't think any nuclear weapon goes to 100% reaction, although that's certainly something they'd like and it's part of the under-the-table research for the new 'wooden' bomb you've been hearing about at LLNL and LANL. It's more than just getting the tritium out of the weapon, they have new pieces to play with.

I have to wonder what happens if you get an anti-neutron interaction with a fissile material. Is it enough energy to cause fission? Or does it just change the isotope to an even mass?


[edit on 16-6-2006 by Tom Bedlam]

Interesting post I have to look more into this.

Anti-matter doesn't (atleast in theory)have to be monoparticulate. I dont think there is any reason you couldnt creat anti-hydrogen or even anti-water and react that with hydrogen or water respectively. That how I assume you would get the best reaction.

This is hypothetical of course even ambiplasma is a hypothetical right now.

Originally posted by Tom Bedlam
I have to wonder what happens if you get an anti-neutron interaction with a fissile material. Is it enough energy to cause fission? Or does it just change the isotope to an even mass?


[edit on 16-6-2006 by Tom Bedlam]

They call it annhilation. Completly cancels eachother out. Miniature Big Bang. Creating anti-matter proves the big bang theory is correct. Creating matter out of nothing.

[edit on 6/17/2006 by StreetCorner Philosopher]

Originally posted by StreetCorner Philosopher


They call it annhilation. Completly cancels eachother out. Miniature Big Bang. Creating anti-matter proves the big bang theory is correct. Creating matter out of nothing.

[edit on 6/17/2006 by StreetCorner Philosopher]

Sure. Just wondering if you get enough ev of energy to cause a fission in that case. Haven't been at work to look up the numbers and I'm too lazy to dig for it on the net from here (off at my brother's).

Just sort of blueskying..like, what happens if you k-capture a positron...then realized it's the wrong charge. Same with the neutron...can you resonance capture an anti-neutron, and if you do, do you get a fission or does it just drop you one in mass? Have to look at the numbers. It's just a wild hair from my subconscious. You probably couldn't get the energy gradient up high enough to create an anti-neutron and if you did, you couldn't hang onto it for more than a few seconds.

BTW, you create 'matter out of nothing' anytime you get a sufficient energy gradient...google for "pair production". You also get lots of weird-arsed virtual particles shrouding any charged particle...they're "there" but not...it's a weird facet of physics that you have to accept is real but seems odd.

Annihilation destroys both particles, so it's more of a gnaB. Seriously, the Bang is not related. These days it's some sort of brane intersection, seems to change every few years.

nice info on pair production. I would think anti protons or positrons would not be able to merge with a proton. Antimatter can only be created with photons now, and the contact creates Sphere's of light that expand and then collapse in on itself. It expands, then shrinks.. Thats how the discussed the activity of matter/antimatter fission !

Originally posted by StreetCorner Philosopher
nice info on pair production. I would think anti protons or positrons would not be able to merge with a proton. Antimatter can only be created with photons now, and the contact creates Sphere's of light that expand and then collapse in on itself. It expands, then shrinks.. Thats how the discussed the activity of matter/antimatter fission !

Um, well, sure a proton and an anti-proton can annihilate each other.

Positrons and protons would repel each other, so you can't build a semi-anti-atom out of positrons and terrene nuclei, which was the weird-arsed concept that hit me for some reason. It won't work. But I wonder if you could build some oddball thing out of a muon and a positron in an orbital around it. Crap, all I need is something else stupid to go think about. I know you can get an electron and a positron to form a co-orbital thing called positronium, sort of a figure eight shaped thing without a nucleus, but it's very unstable.

Anyway, the spheres of light thing is just wrong. Where did you get that from? If you annihilate matter and anti-matter what you get is mostly gamma rays, and if it's a more complex particle like a proton and an anti-proton you get other messy stuff like pions left over that eventually ends up as low energy gammas as well as a few neutrinos to balance the books. So what you get is a burst of hard radiation. No neat spheres, I'm afraid.

Im not speaking of the emissions of an annhilation. But rather the type of shockwave we would see from it.

Nuclear weapons produce halo shockwaves.

Anti-matter/matter contact would produce not a halo, but a sphere.