Antimatter Power!

Discussion in 'Chemistry' started by Forceman, Jan 26, 2008.

  1. Forceman May the force be with you Registered Senior Member

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    This might sound a little like starwars or startrek. If you can use antinitrogen and nitrogen in a collision the gamma rays being produced will provide the thrust. Supergravity collector devices will condense and collect the gamma rays and provide them for the splitting of the electromagnetic energy using proton collisions to create miniature black holes and form positrons and electrons, recreating anti matter providing the thrust once again. There will be many layers of CO2, H2O, C, PB, H2, O2, shielding the crew from radiation.
     
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  3. Positron Agony: Not all pain is gain Registered Senior Member

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    please note I am not insulting your intelligence in anyway whatsoever, but allow me to be blunt.

    That's a bunch of garbage. For now...

    Most of what you said is just impossible physically. There's no such thing as "minature" black holes. there is a black hole, a huge black hole, or there is no black hole. Its kind of like Critical Mass, you can't make a tiny nuke. it will always be a minimum size explosion, which is very large in that case. The only problem with anti-matter as a fuel, is that it releases to much energy to be contained by anything (A penny could get you to Alpha Centauri and back). It is also hard to produce, as we have only been able to make positrons so far. (positive charged electrons) Making negativly charged Protons is a feat that not only is hard, but dangerous. What happens when it touches its container after all.

    Perhaps, however. Some of what you said is possible. It's hard to imagine such things when little has been researched so far on it. Anti-matter is one thing, but when you get into anti-elements, then its gets sticky.
     
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  5. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    In terms of production, humanity has so far produced sufficient anti-matter to light a lightbulb for a few minutes.

    Unfortunately, from what I understand of your idea, even your basic physics is flawed... utterly flawed... as what you suggest is like thinking that you can stand in a boat, blow into the sails and expect to move...
    The emission of the gamma rays might produce your thrust, but the collection of those same gamma rays will give you an equal amount of thrust in the other direction - and all you will have is a stationary machine / ship.

    And if you think: "well, only collect the gamma rays that don't go in the direction of thrust that you want" - then all you're doing is a rather complex means of focusing thrust in a certain direction - using excess amounts of anti-matter to do it and using the excess energy created to produce more anti-matter.
    Why not just use less anti-matter each time but focus ALL the thrust in the direction you want. No need to re-create it.


    And this is just commenting on your basic physics.
     
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  7. Reiku Banned Banned

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    Can I just say, that you statement, ''There is no such thing as a miniature black hole,'' may not be completely true. In fact, electrons by Greene have been posited as special micro-black holes.
     
  8. Nasor Valued Senior Member

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    The first post in this thread didn't make any sense, but almost everything here is wrong.
    Black holes require a critical density, not a critical mass. Any amount of mass, no matter how small, could become a black hole if it is compressed enough.
    The energy can be contained/captured with magnetic fields, or other tricks.
    Not really. Even with antimatter, a large fraction of the mass of your ship will need to be antimatter fuel if you want to travel to another star in a short amount of time. And by "short" I mean a few years. Suppose you had a ship that whose mass was 50% structure and 50% matter/antimatter fuel. Assuming the best possible efficiency in your engine, it would still take you about 8 years to get to alpha centauri. And you would blow through the system at half the speed of light. If you wanted to slow back down when you got there, you would need a ship that was something like 75% matter/antimatter fuel by mass.
    Anti-hydrogen (with positrons orbiting around antiprotons) has been produced at CERN labs in Europe.
     
  9. kevinalm Registered Senior Member

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    Most people have an inflated impression as to how powerfull an antimatter explosion would be. That antimatter penny would have a yeild much smaller than most of the nuclear weapons in the US arsenal. Half a gram of antimatter would be in the neighborhood of 20KT, iirc. That's a Nagasaki size fission warhead.
     
  10. orcot Valued Senior Member

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    E=MC²

    1 kiloton of TNT=4,2TJ

    a penny weights 3,56 grams* speed of light²= 320TJ
    And will annihilate a equal amount of normal matter so times 2= 640TJ

    So your penny would have a destruction capability of 152,57 killoton,

    I gues your right with the 2OKT for half a gram but don't underestimate small sizes. A penny's worth more then you think
     
  11. Positron Agony: Not all pain is gain Registered Senior Member

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    Did you read my post, or just skim it?

    I never said you needed a critical mass for a black hole, I was using critical mass as an analogy to the density thats required for a black hole.

    I am talking about the energy released by an antimatter elimination, not by holding it.

    you think that antimatter is not incredibly powerful? when I say a penny of anti-matter, I mean all the electrons AND protons in a penny. if I was only talking about a penny of anti-electrons then no, it could not get you there. You do know how much bigger than an electron a Proton is right?

    as far as your anti-hydrogen. I had not heard of that.

    Learn to read, and don't skip words that determine the entire meaning of what i'm saying.
     
  12. orcot Valued Senior Member

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    I haven't got the foggiest idea what yout talking abouyh
     
  13. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    A gram of antimatter is still confined by E = MC^2, regardless of composition.

    And you still haven't responded about your supposed "blowing into the sails of a ship to make it move" - which is still a flaw in just your basic physics.
     
  14. Nasor Valued Senior Member

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    You have no idea what you are talking about. All that matters is the mass of the antimatter, not what form it is. A kg of antimatter gets you 1.8x10^17 joules. That's something like 40 megatons of energy - quite a lot, but it could be matched by large nuclear bombs. A penny would only be about a gram, which would be much less - maybe a very small nuke. Do the math yourself and check, if you can. In any case, it certainly wouldn't get you to another star any time soon. My numbers about how much of your ship would need to be antimatter stand.
    Or maybe you should learn some science, so that people don't have to correct you.
     
  15. kevinalm Registered Senior Member

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    993
    Yeah, I was too lazy to look up the weight of a penny. It's a little more than I thought. But the point I was trying to make is that it won't push a starship across the galaxy, or blow up the earth. Which is what many who have never bothered to do the calculation seem to think.

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    150 kt is actually on the low side for thermonuclear weapons. Iirc, most of the US designs have a nominal full yield of ~350 kt or greater. (some of those are 'dial a yield' designs, that supposedly can be set for 100 t, 20 kt, or full yield)
     
  16. orcot Valued Senior Member

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    still whe're speaking of something the weight of a penny, little boy (one of the first abombs weighted 4000kg that would give a blast of 1714269,63 Mt.
     
  17. Reiku Banned Banned

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    Oh yes... a penny is worth, a very lot.
     
  18. kevinalm Registered Senior Member

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    993
    Little boy had a yield of something like 12-16 kt. Fission only converts a small percentage of the fissile mass into energy, plus the little boy design was 'not so good'. The gun assembly method was only used for the bomb on Hiroshima. There were parts for about five more but they were never assembled, the uranium was diverted to other designs.
     
  19. Nasor Valued Senior Member

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    Although to be fair, not much of that was the mass of the uranium that powered the bomb. Almost all of it was the mass of the rest of the bomb - the casing, detonator, etc. Your penny of antimatter would probably need a lot of heavy equipment to store it and keep it from detonating.
     
  20. orcot Valued Senior Member

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    I'm sure your right. Theirs no tech that could store such a large amount practicly and no tech that could produce it in the first place practicly
     
  21. Antimatter is just electric-acids... There are many antimatters: "Nitrogen Electric Acid".. "Neon Electric Acid".. "Argon Electric Acid"... get the picture..?

    Easy to make too.. all you need is a regulatable liquid electricity source... If I had use of a lab I'd build one...
     
  22. Positron Agony: Not all pain is gain Registered Senior Member

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    Cosmic-

    What?
     
  23. AlphaNumeric Fully ionized Registered Senior Member

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    You can use whatever antimatter you like, they all produce gamma rays.
    Simply using buzzwords doesn't make you right. You might as well have said "Magic collector devices" because 'supergravity collectors' is nonsense. 'Supergravity' is a physics term but nothing to do with what you're talking about.
    At no point do you actually produce thrust there! You use antimatter to make antimatter. It's like burning hydrogen to make electricity to split water to make hydrogen. Conservation of energy says you get nothing out of it. Practical limitations say you waste energy!
    Making any kind of antimatter is dangerous, antiprotons or antielectrons.

    And we've made antiprotons. We've even controlled them enough to combine them with positrons to make antihydrogen.

    cosmicbrat, you're completely wrong.
     

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