Antimatter and it's scientific and religious implications

I rarely post on the science board b/c i have little more than high school knowledge on most of the topics. However, i began reading ANGELS AND DEMONS, by Dan Brown, and the subject of antimatter is insanely intriguing to me. What can any of you tell me about antimatter, and what do you think are it's implications on humanity? Will it ever be a form of energy or will we destroy ourselves trying to produce it?

And what about the claim that the creation of antimatter helps to support the Creationist theory---That God created matter?

Any input would be greatly appreciated...thanks.

Well I cannot answer any of your theological questions as I am an Athiest but I'll try to answer some of you Anti-Matter related questions.

Anti-Matter is pretty much like regular matter except with a negative charge, while matter has a positive charge, if these two types of matter say H2 and Anti-H2(H2 = Hydrogen) were to meet they'd annihlate one another and release pure energy. We have also created anti-matter before, infact there was a recent breakthrough involving the production of it. They increased the amount they can create 50 fold, still the amounts they can create do not last long and is really infinitesimal amount still. Not enough to destroy ourselves....yet...

Anti-matter may have useful applications if a cost-effective way of creating it and storing it is developed.

We all know of it's destructive powers though.

A couple of useful applications is in the feild of medicine and energy.

In the field of medicine, it's being used today. You can go to the hospital and get what is known as a PET (positron emitting tomography) scan. Pretty cool invention.

In the feild of energy, it's on down the road a bit though. I believe we'll be able to perfect fusion-reactions in the near future which may help us in the quest for a bountiful amount of anti-matter.

As for religious implications, I don't believe there is any.

Now with these Greenpeace, tree-hugging freaks, there will be trouble. You can bet on that.

Also, it's believed that at the beginning of time, there was a substantial amount of both, matter and anti-matter.

It just so happens that there may have been a little bit more matter, then on the other hand, scientists theorize that whole galaxies may consist of anti-matter alone.

Who knows? I just wouldn't want to travel there!

Now with these Greenpeace, tree-hugging freaks, there will be trouble. You can bet on that.

Was this comment needed? Greenpeace has stated again and again that thier stance on things like fusion is that they are still on the fense(same goes with Nanotechnology only the ETC and Prince Charles have raised alarms bells about this so far...) . ETC/ELF(They are really just the same group, ELF is just the super-"activist" arm ...) are irrelivant and please do not let thier actions and rhetoric taint the whole friggen movement..

BTW I am a tree-hugging freak as you so deftly put it, and I fully support Fusion research, and research into advanced Nucular Fission, it would be great if the reactors themselves are made only uni use, instead of dual-use(ie Civilian and Military) is that even possible? I am personally more worried about the environmental degredation the Oil-Wars are going to have on the planet so I'm getting more and more ... not desperate, we're not there yet just things are getting more urgent I can feel it in my bones. I do not like the Neo-Luddite movement any more then you do Intelearthling, just please namecalling is a sign of a lack of imagination.

Originally posted by sardion2000
Was this comment needed? I do not like the Neo-Luddite movement any more then you do Intelearthling, just please namecalling is a sign of a lack of imagination.

I wasn't meanig to be offensive.

It's just that ELF is a terrorist group and should be looked at like a bunch of criminals (that's who I liken to the tree-hugging freaks), and Greenpeace, they do some pretty stupid things, i.e. chasing a nuclear-powered submarine to protest it's on-board armament in an inflatable raft.

Not too smart in my opinion.

What if a mis-hap should occur? Whose fault would it be? Surely not the submarines.

They have some good issues but terrible tactics.

Myself? I live in the country (or pretty much so) and I love my trees on my property.

I'm sorry that you took my comment offensively. I'm as much concerned about the enviroment as the next person.

I wish everyone was as concerned about it as I am. I know that it would be a much cleaner world than it presently is!

Cool?


[edit on 23/2/05 by Intelearthling]

Originally posted by Intelearthling

I wasn't meanig to be offensive.

"tree-hugging freaks" and yet, you weren't "trying" to be offensive I support this also and I too love and worry about the environment...you do know of course that things have to be in balance and without the "tree hugging" freaks, you may not have clean air to breath, clean water to drink......think about it! And I don't mind a bit in the world being called a "tree hugger" I usually say, WOW! Thank you! I do not like being called a freak though, or though of as such.


EDIT...Oh yeah...why should there be any religious implications? Why should Christians have a problem with this? So something is discovered...so what!? How come they couldn't just look at it as "god created in a scientific manner...

[edit on 2/23/2005 by LadyV]

Originally posted by LadyV
EDIT...Oh yeah...why should there be any religious implications? Why should Christians have a problem with this? So something is discovered...so what!?

How come they couldn't just look at it as "god created in a scientific manner...

[edit on 2/23/2005 by LadyV]

The religious implication is this: We must CREATE antimatter. It is a widely held physics law that matter cannot be created. If man can create antimatter, it means that God COULD have created matter. The big bang theory is great and all---scientifically accurate. But what was there before the big bang? Who or what initiated the big bang? Science cannot explain that...

Well, Sardion and Intel pretty much covered it its uses and what it is.

As for religious implications, the most extreme that I can think of might happen is that an overly religious psycho christian group would try to claim g*d created matter and Satan created anti-matter and they might try to blow up public test sites.

Originally posted by LadyV

Originally posted by Intelearthling
I wasn't meanig to be offensive.

"tree-hugging freaks" and yet, you weren't "trying" to be offensive

LadyV, people may take things out of context at times.

I was just implying that the "freaks" are over-zealots, just like me, I'm a freak in some people's eye's.

I was a KISS freak in High School. Then I became a Metallica freak. Then a military freak. I've always been a space freak and junkie. I was a UFO freak at one time. I love aircrafts, so I was a airplane freak by many.

Now, I'm just a regular ole' freak! Ask my girlfriend!

Originally posted by sardion2000
Well I cannot answer any of your theological questions as I am an Athiest but I'll try to answer some of you Anti-Matter related questions.

Anti-Matter is pretty much like regular matter except with a negative charge, while matter has a positive charge

Just thought I'd pop in and alter this mostly correct statement. Antimatter doesn't have a "negative" charge, nor does matter have a "positive" charge. Matter and antimatter have opposite charges.

Take for example an electron. An electron is regular matter, but it has a negative charge associated with it. A positron, the anitmatter counterpart of an electron, has a positive charge, just as protons and antiprotons compliment each other in the same manner.

Originally posted by Kwintz

The religious implication is this: We must CREATE antimatter. It is a widely held physics law that matter cannot be created.

Now hold on one second - widely held? Widely held by who? Of course we can create matter, just as we can destroy it. It's a two way street. We can create antimatter, which is matter when you get down to it, and we can destroy matter using nuclear processes quite readily. I believe what you're thinking of is that energy cannot be created or destroyed.



[edit on 6/3/2005 by Thousand]

Thanks Thousand much appreciated

[edit on 6-3-2005 by sardion2000]

Okay, I really hate when people "raise alarms" about Nanotechnology. I both research and teach some of the VAST subjects associated with nanotechnology and it is IMPOSSIBLE to group the entire subject into a potential danger.

The ideas have so many great implications, but yet people fear that someone will create nanorobots that will eat your brain. It's foolish paranoia.

Originally posted by Kwintz
I rarely post on the science board b/c i have little more than high school knowledge on most of the topics. However, i began reading ANGELS AND DEMONS, by Dan Brown, and the subject of antimatter is insanely intriguing to me. What can any of you tell me about antimatter, and what do you think are it's implications on humanity? Will it ever be a form of energy or will we destroy ourselves trying to produce it?

And what about the claim that the creation of antimatter helps to support the Creationist theory---That God created matter?

Any input would be greatly appreciated...thanks.

In the Big Bang there was both positive and negative matter but most of the matter annihilated it's self... The resulting energy is thought to be an explanation of the inflation the universe experienced in the very early phase of the Big Bang...

Scientists have assumed that there must have been slightly more matter than Anti-Matter in the object (Singularity) that initiated the big bang.

However, that may or may not be true as it is entirely possible that there are entire galaxies or cluster of Galaxies that are made entirely of Anti-matter.... (We do not have any data on what would happen if a Galaxy and it;s anti counterpart were to collide...

Or even if it is possible to have an anti-Matter Black hole... Would a black hole that is made from Anti-matter spew out normal matter or would it just repel all normal matter and absorb ant-matter??

Does anyone have a clue?? The answer is no... no one knows for sure.... we can only extrapolate from measurements.

As to answer your question does anti-matter figure in the Evolution / Creationist argument... Anti-Matter has nothing to do with this at all... The fact that there is Anti-matter proves there is a god about as much as Normal Matter...

Personally I believe in God, but that is only my opinion.

Neon.

Originally posted by Thousand

Originally posted by Kwintz

The religious implication is this: We must CREATE antimatter. It is a widely held physics law that matter cannot be created.

Now hold on one second - widely held? Widely held by who? Of course we can create matter, just as we can destroy it. It's a two way street. We can create antimatter, which is matter when you get down to it, and we can destroy matter using nuclear processes quite readily. I believe what you're thinking of is that energy cannot be created or destroyed.

Thousand, and Kwintz:

Okay, no, we do not ever create or destroy anything.

'Widely Held' is an understatement. It's a law of thermodynamics that matter/energy can be neither created nor destroyed.

Now, we don't literally 'create' antimatter, that's just a misconception that arises from the terminology.

There are many ways to 'make' antimatter, things like Positron-decay, and other ways. They are well documented nuclear processes, and they are just transfers of energy one way or another.

At present, it costs us more energy to set up a system so that antimatter is 'created' than the energy we get out of the annihalation process, thus, the net energy generated is negative.

What people have been saying about it being too costly to generate Antimatter is also a bit misleading - it is not too costly in a simple monetary sense, though that's true, it is monetarily costly.

It's also too costly energy-wise. It will become a cost-effective method when the net energy generated becomes positive - as opposed to negative or zero.

But yes, we do not by any means create anything, it's simply a poorly chosen term for the transfer of energy generating a type of matter.

Originally posted by T_Jesus
Okay, I really hate when people "raise alarms" about Nanotechnology. I both research and teach some of the VAST subjects associated with nanotechnology and it is IMPOSSIBLE to group the entire subject into a potential danger.

The ideas have so many great implications, but yet people fear that someone will create nanorobots that will eat your brain. It's foolish paranoia.

Antimatter is not Nanotechnology... It's Quantum Tech Way beyond us at this point really.

Originally posted by Viendin

Thousand, and Kwintz:

Okay, no, we do not ever create or destroy anything.

'Widely Held' is an understatement. It's a law of thermodynamics that matter/energy can be neither created nor destroyed.

The first law of thermodynamics states that energy may be transferred from one system to another in many forms, but that it cannot be created or destroyed. Learn more here.

Einstein postulated that energy and matter are interchangeable and, as such, there is a constant amount of energy and matter in the universe. This has not been proven and some believe it to be wrong.

Basically, the laws of thermodynamics refer to enregy in general and heat specifically. They are not meant to be applied to matter as it is an all together different subject. Chemistry is the science that deals with matter. Learn more here.

Considering that matter is everywhere and everything and you and I did not exist before we were born, it would seem that matter can be created. It requires an amount of energy (one cell splits to become two, etc) but that second cell (and subsequent generations) were not there before.