Antimatter Definition and 286 Threads

This question was asked by a grade 12 learner Xavier and I am asking it on his behalf.

So, semi-simple antimatter physics state that when antimatter comes in contact with regular matter, an explosion occurs. If there is only antimatter and matter in the universe, how can antimatter even exist, since it will come in contact with matter at one point and explode? So how are...

Hi, I have been confused about whether there is any gravitational force between antimatter as what have between matter...and also whether there is gravitational force between antimatter and matter? Thanks Ron

Is it true that antimatter is positive matter traveling backwards in time? I have recently heard some say that it is and is part of the mainstream interpretation, but others say that it shouldn't be taken too literally, but I myself am not sure. What is the general consensus on the matter if...

So matter creates a gravitational field which slows time, does antimatter have the opposite effect on time? I am curious because that would mean an anti matter singularity would speed time up greatly relative to itself, maybe allowing us to study singularities. Also since it is a singularity...

The title kind of says it all. I've heard conflicting things about this one, so here goes: Is a positron really an electron going backwards in time? I've been thinking things out in my head, and it doesn't seem that that would result in a positive charge. Am I doing it all wrong? Would an...

Does antimatter (negative matter) have "negative mass"? If not, why is this so suspected? And could anything theoretically have negative mass?

I'm confused now... how can be antiparticles be detected in a bubble chamber which is made of ordinary matter? Why does a positron leave its trace interacting with the chamber gas without annihilating immediately?

I'm working on a story that involves planting a chunk of antimatter the size of the US capital... well, on the US capital. Unfortunately, I realized that it would probably blow up like an atom bomb the size of the Empire State Building, and would take half the solar system with it. The...

How modern astronomy/cosmology rules out the possibility that some of observable galaxies are made of antimatter? Or within the same galaxy some stars/solar systems to be made of matter while others from antimatter? Isnt light emitted by antimatter exactly the same as that from matter?

To put it short, I'm designing an antimatter rocket that a guy at NASA want's to see. I'm working hard but had a few questions for you guys: 1. What's the easiest way to get Positrons? 2. Any ideas on either storing it for a month or having a machine keep feeding the engine positrons like a...

If a particle has a certain potential energy then collides with its antiparticle, releasing energy according to E=2mc^2, what happens to the PE of the two particles? Let's say that a particle has a gravitational potential energy of X, wouldn't the antiparticle need to have a GPE of -X in...

I have been reading a book written by Leon Lederman and he says something about how much energy antimatter can produce. So knowing that, my question is HOW and WHY does antimatter generate so much energy? Thanks.

A relatively recent story about anti-matter being created by lightning caught my eye. http://www.space.com/10602-antimatter-beams-thunderstorms-nasa.html I was curious if anyone on this forum could quantify "how much" antimatter could be created by a terrestrial lightning strike...

Are there any experimantal evidences which imply that antimatter interacts gravitationally in exactly the same way as matter. I found one argument in "Feynamn lectures on gravitation": Let's consider correction to binding energy of an electron in a atom coming from vacuum polarization...

Hello, Just having a few thoughts and wondered if anyone can answer: Would an antimatter Universe be expected to follow the same physical laws as our own matter Universe, in a nutshell: inflation, then expansion and unltimately ending in a heat death? Thanks

Sorry if this has been posted already. Its a Canadian led study! "Antimatter atoms have been held captive and kept in existence for a whopping 16 minutes by a Canadian-led team — far longer than the researchers thought possible. "It was quite a surprise," said Makoto Fujiwara, lead author of a...

Is there any difference between a black hole formed from matter and a black hole formed from antimatter? The no-hair theorem says no, right? If there is no difference, then that means that a black hole can disturb the balance between matter and antimatter, by eating up all the antimatter. Could...

http://science.discovery.com/tv/through-the-wormhole/episodes/what-are-we-made-of/ Discovery channel is running a very excellent episode on particle physics & the LHC hosted by Morgan Freeman and they mentioned something which I want to inquire further. It is mentioned in the program that...

After reading some basic texts and reading on this forum I understand the early universe had a phase which was dominated by matter/anti matter particle annihilation - this left a surplus of matter - which is the U we know today. What are the main physical differences between...

Latley I have been researching antimatter. I know how it is created in the CERN particle accelerators. What I want to know is how antimatter can be created more efficiently and effectivley.

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-05-cern-scientists-confine-antihydrogen-atoms.html When I read this I couldn't get my head around it, they are try to suggest that something with mass would be repulsed by gravity instead of attracted by it. This would mean the antihydrogen has a mass of a...

while i am well aware of the prohibitive cost of antimatter production and its current status as something that is only of academic interest, i understand that the development of tabletop particle accelerators isn't as far fetched as, say, cold fusion in that it doesn't automatically invite...

What would the universe be like in contrast to what it is now if it were made out of antimatter? Or would it be exactly the same? Thanks.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1103.3312

Suppose there were an intelligent lifeform that was made out of antimatter. What would happen if it came in contact with life made out of matter? Could it come close to a matter being? What would happen if it touched a matter being?

is antimatter the same thing as dark matter? is antigravity the same thing as dark energy?

could a particle of antimatter be the singularity inside a black hole?

Is it correct that applying charge conjugation to matter gives us antimatter? This post claims that it is the CP operation that does... http://blogs.uslhc.us/symmetry-in-physics-pt-2-discrete-symmetries-and-antimatter Which is correct?

When more matter collides with less antimatter, is all of the antimatter and matter destroyed, or just equivalent amounts, and if the latter, what happens to the excess matter?

I was hoping someone here could give me some direction with regards to books or review papers. I'm in my final year of my BSc doing a computational project on looking at the formation of antimatter molecules before they annihilate, e.g. a hydrogen-antihydrogen molecule. The computational bit is...

Hi This is my first post, and I have a lot of ideas to talk about I'll start with this one: What would the difference be between a thermonuclear explosion and an antimatter explosion, of equal yield (say 2 megatons each), and similar location and weather? I think that the each would have a...

When an electron and a positron encounter each other we get a matter antimatter reaction. If we added the rest mass of the electron and the rest mass of the positron together and then divided that number by the number of photons that the reaction generated, what would we get for an answer?

"Antimatter": Property Or Label? I am interested in learning whether a particle’s status as "matter" or "antimatter" is an independent property of that particle, a constellation of other properties or a (somewhat nonspecific) designation. Opinions are welcome if a definitive answer has not...

:eek: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_switzerland_antimatter" Did you hear about this?:bugeye:

I assume it's possible to convert matter into energy, and vice versa. I assume the same is true for antimatter. I also assume there is no such thing as "anti-energy". Shouldn't it thus be possible to convert matter into antimatter, by first converting the matter into energy, and then the...

So I am taking an introductory particle physics class, and we have started learning about the leptons and how some particles, like neutrinos, have antiparticle pair based on a different in a different quantum number, like Lepton number. Another example is Neutrion and Anti-Neutron which differ...

Some Questions regarding antimatter...Please help Hi there...I have some questions please help... Q1)I need to know the result of annihilation of the following particles... proton-antineutron neutron-antiproton Q2)If possible, please mention other annihilation...

I'm no expert in particle physics, I only know some of the basics, though I do plan on going into this field for a PhD in the future, which will probably take another year before I begin it... Would a beam of antimatter particles, either made up of only 1 type of particle, or a mix of...

In his popular-physics book "The Universe in a Nutshell", Hawking presents the creation/annihilation of virtual particle pairs in two ways: (1) one particle has positive energy, the other negative energy, and (2) a matter/antimatter pair. This leads to the obvious conclusion that he is...

Is the temperature of a hypothetical antimatter bomb explosion sufficiently high to heat the surrounding matter into quark-gluon plasma? I guess not, but just want to ask you guys for sure.

According to Newtons law of gravitation when 2 masses are separated by distance d ,,, then the gravitational force acting on them is F = Gm1m2/d2 Does this apply to antimatter and antimatter (negative mass and negative mass)?? And also does it apply to matter and antimatter (mass and...

If this question has an answer I didn't find it on the rest of the forums.

Standard physics texts assert that antimatter expresses a normal attractive gravitational force. Has this been proven by any experiments, or only asseted in the current theories? We know from experiments that antimatter has the opposite charge, but could it also have the opposite gravitational...

I've got a challenge for you guys. I'm doing a powerpoint presentation which involves written forms of particle decay, and I was wondering if there was a way to write a letter with a bar over the top in order to indicate an antiparticle without the use of images or shapes. -Jeans

There is an old weird theory that an antiparticle is actually a particle going back in time; when a pair is born "out of nowhere", it's in fact one particle making a U-turn in time. Now, consider the expanding Universe. Let's say you are observing a nearby spinning galaxy drifting away from...

matter, antimatter, and Dirac equation As far as I know the Dirac equation states that there is a copy of this universe somewhere made up of only antimatter. At the same time isn't the lhc being used to find out why normal matter 'won' at the creation of the universe? But at the same time with...

Feynman proposed that antimatter is just matter that is traveling backwards in time. If you had jar of antimatter gas in some thermodynamic state what would happen to the entropy of the antimatter over time? In my understanding matter and antimatter can interact with each other without...

hi, not that I'm going to make one, I'm asking just out of curiosity Would it be possible to make an antimatter bomb by using regular h-bomb and radioisotopes like those used in pet scanners?

In Kip Thorne's BLACK HOLES AND TIME WARPS,1993, he mentioned on page 173 that some cosmic rays particles are made of antimatter..and this was discovered by Carl Anderson at Caltech...seems like in the early 1930's... I could not find anything about antimatter Cosmic Rays in Wikipedia...