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Ash Small
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Anti-hydrogen atoms have been trapped/stored for the first time at CERN.
http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2010/11/17/antimatter-atoms/
http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2010/11/17/antimatter-atoms/
encorp said:I'm surprised there isn't more discussion on this topic on these forums, unless I've missed the threads on it?
Or is this just not a big deal as the media is making it out to be? Which is what I suspect.
drankin said:Can anyone tell me how much energy is released during annilhation of a single hydrogen and antihydrogen atom.
It's a tiny, miniscule amount of energy by everyday standards. It's enough energy to power a 60 W lightbulb for only 5 trillionths* of a second.And compare it to something I, a non-physicist type, can relate to?
Redbelly98 said:Sure, just use this famous equation:
E = m c2The mass of a hydrogen atom is 1.674 × 10−27 kg
So m is twice that (1 hydrogen + 1 antihydrogen atom), or 3.34 × 10−27 kg
c = 3.00 × 108 m/s
Square c and multiply by m, and you get the energy in Joules:
E = 3.01 × 10−10 J
It's a tiny, miniscule amount of energy by everyday standards. It's enough energy to power a 60 W lightbulb for only 5 trillionths* of a second.
I estimate that it is about 10 millionths of the kinetic energy of a housefly.
If an electric company charges 0.10 $(US) per kilowatt-hour of electricity, then this energy would be the equivalent of 8×10−18 dollars, or
$0.000000000000000008
*using the USA definition of 1 trillion = 1,000,000,000,000 or 1012
drankin said:Ah thanks, the articles were talking about a great amount of energy being released during annilhation. To a layman like me I'm left scratching my head, "like splitting atoms, nuclear explostion?". But the scale is apparently extremely small.
Agreed. If you make it one gram of hydrogen & antihydrogen, instead of 1 atom of each, then take the energy numbers I posted and shift the decimal point over 23 places.nismaratwork said:We're talking about ONE hydrogen atom... ask Redbelly98 what the maximum fission or fusion yield for U238 or Pu... it's going to be small. The trick is getting lots of those atoms together, and the energy adds up... just like a firecracker vs. a bomb... or a grain of a grain of a grain of black powder vs. a 1000 pound bomb.
Redbelly98 said:Agreed. If you make it one gram of hydrogen & antihydrogen, instead of 1 atom of each, then take the energy numbers I posted and shift the decimal point over 23 places.
I'll add that to make the antihydrogen in the first place, you also need to consume at least as much energy as is produced by the matter-antimatter annihilation. To be useful, we would need a naturally occurring source of antimatter, which does not exist.
zomgwtf said:I've done a bit more researh into the topic and found that the amount of energy released is extremely high. I believe two orders of magnitude higher than the best fission process. However it is extremely inefficient.
First inefficiency comes from actually producing the atoms, very few anti-particles made make it to be able to even create an atom.
Then in the annihilation lots of energy is lost to neutrinos, about 50% I've read.
Then there's the cost of production, it is incredibly expensive to create this tsuff and requires a lot of energy. The amount of energy which goes into creating these particles is much greater than the amount of energy released.
If any of this is wrong could someone point me in the right direction.
Now, the thing is though that it is very light. So possibly it could be used as a fuel at some very distant point in the future?
I found that even the full amount of atoms ever created if they were used to power something would power a light bulb for a few seconds.
nismaratwork said:I assume you mean efficiency as a bomb, right, otherwise in whatever form the energy is radiated, the efficiency is 100%.
Plebeian said:Maybe all the anti matter that formed during the big bang mixed with matter and converted into energy?
But then according to the big bang equal amounts must have been created which means hardly any matter would be left over after they reacted.
encorp said:There would be zero matter if that were the case.
This is exactly what physicists are trying to figure out hehehehe
encorp said:There would be zero matter if that were the case.
This is exactly what physicists are trying to figure out hehehehe
Plebeian said:Maybe there was little more matter formed during the big bang
nismaratwork said:@Zomgwtf: Gotcha, not a bomb. When you're talking about efficiency then... think about this:
If I want to deliver the maximum amount of energy to a given region, the efficiency of my device would be measured by how much of what I put it, made it to that region. Efficiency is a function of context, as I said, unless you just mean that annihilation is a perfectly efficient reaction, which is true. What was the context you were thinking of in terms of your statement of efficiency, because obviously I missed your point.
Since anti-matter releases roughly 1000X more energy per gram than does the fission of U-235, it has some appeal for space travel. And the energy is all electromagnetic (no waste to bury!). Hey, sounds like an idea for a sci-fi theme! The trick currently is in speeding up the production rate from http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/368/1924/3671.full" , which equates to 100 billion years per gram of production.Redbelly98 said:Agreed. If you make it one gram of hydrogen & antihydrogen, instead of 1 atom of each, then take the energy numbers I posted and shift the decimal point over 23 places.
I'll add that to make the antihydrogen in the first place, you also need to consume at least as much energy as is produced by the matter-antimatter annihilation. To be useful, ...
On earth.:tongue:we would need a naturally occurring source of antimatter, which does not exist.
Anti-matter is a type of matter that has the opposite properties of normal matter, with particles that have the opposite charge and spin.
Anti-matter can be created through high-energy collisions between particles, such as in particle accelerators, or through natural processes like cosmic rays interacting with our atmosphere.
Trapping anti-matter allows scientists to study and better understand its properties and behavior, which could potentially lead to advancements in fields like energy production and space travel.
Anti-matter can be trapped using magnetic fields, which can contain and control the movement of anti-particles.
Potential uses for anti-matter include energy production, medical imaging, and space propulsion. However, more research is needed to fully understand and harness its properties.