The Truth About Antimatter

[Mercedes Benzene]

People get soo hyped up by what Dan Brown says.

:thumbs_up

I'm sure he could create his own cult if he really wanted to... and he could probably get thousands to join...

Anyway:

Does anyone know how antimatter is actually created??? It just does not seem like one of those things that people can make as of now. I don't know. Ideas?

[Jay-qu]

well that was kinda my point, it cant be done. Would you mind outlining how neutral atoms are held?

[Mercedes Benzene]

Actually, neutral atoms CAN be held by an intense vacuum. I'm sure there are multiple pieces of super-scientific equipment that can achieve this at some research laboratory somewhere. :thumbs_up

[Lancaster]

It involves a particle accelerator, that's all I know. If you really need to know anything, just ask my good friend Wikipedia.

 

Anyway, if we can ever find a more efficient way to produce and store antimatter, the real treasure would be antimatter reactors. Antimatter is about 35 times more efficient than Nuclear Fission, given the same amount of fuel. Think of how great a resource that would be to space travel!

[Mercedes Benzene]

Oh, and I just found something actually that I should probably add:

Lasers can hold neutral atoms.... apparently, according to this article I just found on google... (I don't know how reliable it is, but it looks legit).

[CraigD]

Object lesson from this thread.

 

Dan Brown books make you stupid.

 

Kidding. Kidding.

 

Seriously, when Dan Brown says something "scientific" assume it's untrue.

 

TFS

What scares me is the millions of people that read his books and take them literally. Dan Brown has a knack for taking something that MAY be true, listing facts that are SORT OF true about it, throwing in some speculation commonly dismissed by experts, and then making it into a story that sound very believable. …

I found the difference in my reaction to Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code”, which I read first, and “Angels and Demons”, humorous.

 

The liberties Brown took with art and relegious history in “The Da Vinci Code” struck me as forgivable in the interest of telling an enjoyable story. Critics of the book’s artistic license were, I felt, being oversensitive at best, and religiously intolerant at worst.

 

When I read “Angels and Demons” a couple of month later, I found my self incensed over his flamboyantly inaccurate and ill-informed depictions of science (Eg: lines like “"Director, you are looking at the world's first specimins of _antimatter_!” and claims that antimatter held the key to meeting the world’s energy needs). Taking liberties with religion, I felt, was one thing, but in slandering particle physics, Brown had gone too far!

 

Fiction authors, I think, should shoulder greater responsibility for avoiding spreading scientific nonsense in their fictions. Science enthusiasts should make an effort to help authors, many of whom lack a sound foundation in Science, have their fictional science be compatible with the real stuff. I can’t help but wonder how positive an impact the influence of a scientific friend could have had on an author like Brown, who, unfortunately, though he spent time at several very good schools (Exeter and Amherst) appears to have associated mostly with musicians, visual artists and art historians, and language enthusiasts.

[Lancaster]

Well said. Always read Brown with a closed mind. I've read all his books, and after reading each one, I went out and researched what he states as fact. It's insulting to think that the intellegent reader's suspension of belief is so small.

 

This is a great page. CERN seems to keep a positive attitude towards Brown's fiction.

 

Does CERN own an X-33 spaceplane?

 

Cern-No.

[CraigD]

Does anyone know how antimatter is actually created??? It just does not seem like one of those things that people can make as of now.

Antimatter being made now, though only tiny amounts of it (millions of atoms).

 

Positrons (antimatter electrons) are easy to get: a gram of radioactive material like sodium-22 gives of trillions of them a second. It’s the high-mass antiproton that’s hard to get. At CERN, where most of the antimatter-making appears to be going on, they do it by accelerating protons to a very high speed in one of their big cyclotrons, then colliding them with a copper or iridium target. According to CERN’s “antimatter factory” site, any target material (eg: “a piece of English beef”) would work, but copper and iridium are good because they’re easy to keep cool.

 

The real trick isn’t creating antimatter, but slowing and catching it before it annihilates with surrounding ordinary matter. So most articles on the subject devote a couple of lines to creating the particles, then pages on what happens next.

 

5/2005 Scientific American had a good article, “Making Cold Antimater”, on making antimatter. Unfortunately, as with many sciam articles, it appears you either have to have a digital subscription, or visit a library to get it. I suspect you can find something as good or better free online, if you search enough.

[Mercedes Benzene]

Okay. I figured it was being made naturally ( I mean, OBVIOUSLY it would have to be), but I was wondering if humans can make it easily, and if so: how?

Thanks CraigD!

 

5/2005 Scientific American had a good article, “Making Cold Antimater”, on making antimatter. Unfortunately, as with many sciam articles, it appears you either have to have a digital subscription, or visit a library to get it. I suspect you can find something as good or better free online, if you search enough.

 

I think I have that one! yay! I will have to go see if I can find it.

[learnin to learn]

I found a site hosted by CERN that has a couple webcasts and videos, where they talk about antimatter. here is the link

http://livefromcern.web.cern.ch/livefromcern/antimatter/webcast/AM-webcast06.html

[TheFaithfulStone]

Taking liberties with religion, I felt, was one thing, but in slandering particle physics, Brown had gone too far!

 

:lol:

 

Apostate!

 

He's got another book "Deception Point" where he similarly rapes science with the pointy end of the plot stick.

 

I guess I understand how religious people feel when people just make stuff up about their religion now. :)

 

It wasn't the antimatter bomb that got me in 'Angels & Demons' it was all the crap about antimatter being proof of the existence of God, and ambigrams being "impossible" to create. (But wait - didn't you create a whole bunch of them for this very book??!)

 

Back on track:

 

HBAR technologies has invented, or at least described, a new kind of anti-matter trap, which involves placing single anti-protons in a precisely machined microchip. Unfortunately, I can't find the PDF where it's described - anybody have any ideas - I remember thinking it seemed much less dodgy than the magnetic Penning traps.

 

Here it is - Ioffe-Pritchard Trap.

 

http://www.hbartech.com/niac_sail1_final.pdf

 

TFS

[learnin to learn]

I personally liked the novel, yes it has dozens upon dozens of inaccuracies, but the book made a good point.

Science is now the miracle worker of the world, not god.