The Power Of Antimatter

Originally posted by sturod84
i can only think of one practical use for such a weapon. defending us from the wrath of the heavens, like a comet and or space invaders. yeah mostly a comet that is as big as texas would only be detstroyed by something with the magnitude of an anti matter blast.

Comet with size of Texas would have impact/kinetic energy in class of 2.35e+14 MegaTons.

Bomb big enough to stop that would have to be huge. (and impossible to make)
So have a nice day!

www.lpl.arizona.edu...

That is what makes the warp drive systems in Star Trek so powerful.. just look at the anti-matter calculator and see how little antimatter is used to release mega energy.

When someone actually builds a spaceship that can use antimatter, I'll be impressed. The stuff is near impossible to store and produce (although, if you balance the inputs just right it should be theoretically self-sustaining. depends on your physicist, though). Not to mention use... massive gamma ray flux. Enough to kill Scotty through a couple dozen meters of 'crete. Nasty stuff, antimatter. Best design I've ever seen is from NASA mid 1970's, it's in a book I have, but not online. Uses a laser to push antimatter to back of ship, rides on shockwave. (We wanted to try that with nukes... didn't work out too welll). Still doesn't explain the warp drive faster than light thingamajigger.

Oh, and by the way, because it's my pet peeve and it's going to come up, the equation is E = mc^2 but rather E = mc^2 / sqrt( 1 - v^2/c^2), where V is the relative velocity of the system in question. If you know anything about math, that should also explain why you can't go faster than the speed of light. Thank you.

ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu...

Originally posted by beyondSciFi
yep i agree with you, but if they grays start more crap, we can send em a antimatter bomb too

little gray bastards...

[edit on 17-9-2004 by beyondSciFi]

I'd like to point out that there are a number of people that have worked for the government and who have seen alien craft up close (like Bob Lazar for example), who claim that the Zetan-Greys not only have advanced nuclear capability but that their interstellar spacecraft are each run on antimatter reactors that are the approximate size of a basketball! John Lear mentioned this recently in his interview thread.

According to (Ret.) US Army Sgt. Clifford Stone, the Zetans have various bases around the world that number around a dozen.

A logical conclusion is that they could easily nuke this planet into oblivion if they really wanted to -- after they did an evacuation from their various underground and underwater facilities.

It is certainly a nice thought to get rid of the malevolent Greys who treat many of us as laboratory animals but we need tactics and weapons that would ensure our own survival as well.




[edit on 25-9-2004 by Paul_Richard]

Originally posted by SilentFrog
Not to mention use... massive gamma ray flux. Enough to kill Scotty through a couple dozen meters of 'crete. Nasty stuff, antimatter.

You just need enough thick wall of dense material.

Neutron radiation would be even more problematic, neutrons colliding to atoms' nucleus can make them unstable (radioactive).

The neutron flux can induce significant amounts of short lived secondary radioactivity in the environment in the high flux region near the burst point. The alloy steels used in armor can develop radioactivity that is dangerous for 24-48 hours. If a tank exposed to a 1 kt neutron bomb at 690 m (the effective range for immediate crew incapacitation) is immediately occupied by a new crew, they will receive a lethal dose of radiation within 24 hours.

www.wordiq.com...

if we tested an antimatter bomb on earth, we would be blown into the sun (if we stay in one piece)

There was a site I visited a while ago that attempted to calculate the necessary force required to blow the Earth apart or to knock it out of orbit. Apparenly it would require many tons of antimatter to do it.

I used to think that nuclear testing during the cold war could have had a negative effect on the Earth's orbit, but after reading the article I think we're pretty safe

Originally posted by demonhunter
if we tested an antimatter bomb on earth, we would be blown into the sun (if we stay in one piece)

How many times this has to be said?
Antimatter isn't some wonder weapon, it just gives more "bang per pound". (efficiency of fusion ~1% of mass, with antimatter its 200%)

Yield of biggest nuke (design) was 100 megatons, with same "reaction mass" antimatter bomb would have roughly yield of 20 gigatons. (or 20 000 megatons)

Now I'll take again that example about "shooting earth with Texas sized comet":
The impact energy is 9.82e+29 Joules = 2.35e+14 MegaTons.

The Earth is not strongly disturbed by the impact and loses negligible mass.
The impact does not make a noticeable change in the Earth's rotation period or the tilt of its axis.
The impact does not shift the Earth's orbit noticeably.
www.lpl.arizona.edu...

God how bad hallucinations this western civilization seems to have about being all-powerfull.

The anti-matter space travel idea.. well.. it wasnt anti-matter..
Yes, it is a bubble, of some sort, But I'm not quite sure how it works, I believe it might involve some sort of Brane theory, but I'm sure it wasnt anti-matter (or else how would you go in/out of the bubble without being annihilated!)

Antimatter will, in the near future, be one of the main sources of energy..
One kilogram of antimatter would only cost several hundred million to make at the moment (I'm guessing, off what I know scientifically) but they are building a device to produce anti-hydrogen in quantities, so that cost should floor very soon.
The main energy source of the future will be fusion (which is why $10-15 billion US was recently pledged towards building a fusion plant, in either france or japan, the last step before commercialization), and then anti-matter

Originally posted by browha
One kilogram of antimatter would only cost several hundred million to make at the moment (I'm guessing, off what I know scientifically)

Make that one thousandth of gram.

here
With current technology, it is considered possible to attain antimatter for 25 billion dollars per gram (roughly 1,000 times the equivalent cost of the equivalent amount of energy in space shuttle propellants) by optimizing the collision and collection parameters, given current electricity generation costs.

If we can get production to a maximum, as read off page 4 on this site Here (maximum is 50%, photons create matter/anti-matter pairs), one gram of antiprotons will cost only $5million.

edit; interesting NASA site on it. Here

[edit on 7-10-2004 by browha]

What would be the point of an ' Antimatter ' weapon, we already have enough Nuclear devices to eradicate every major city in the world, along with most of the worlds population

now what would be the POINT of having a weapon 1000x more powerful ? huh

Its not even realistic, and the cost is phenominal

The answer you seek.. is in your own signature..

omg it is .... LOL

sif put me on the spot like that

lol
It's true though, lol

When these weapons become a reality the only option will be to build them in space and also produce the majority of antimatter in space (not forgeting that to get a safe distance from earth antimatter propulsion would probably be needed, a few grams is pretty low risk though). We are talking about weapons over 1kg here(2kg including matter) it will never be feasible to test these weapons at home, not unless u are inclined to wrecking continents.

Originally posted by cyberdude78

Originally posted by sturod84
i can only think of one practical use for such a weapon. defending us from the wrath of the heavens, like a comet and or space invaders. yeah mostly a comet that is as big as texas would only be detstroyed by something with the magnitude of an anti matter blast.

If we have problems with asteroids the size of Texas we probably just need to nuke the thing off course. What we need protection from is Ben Affleck.

As for all this stuff about lets blow up the grays lets consider this. They probably invented anti-matter bombs thousands of years ago or something. If humans could invent it I don't see why the grays can't invent it. Besides the only way to defend ourselves from aliens is probably hoping they invade instead of just nuking us untill all life is annilated, then we just pray that guerilla warfare works. Our only option would be to hope we put up enough of a fight to make them figure were not worth the effort.

How do you do that? You actually make it seem like you know what the hell your talking about.

O.K.
Let me put a bit of enlightment.
Nuclear power has a energy efficiency of 1.5% when a nuclear core is egnited. When a antiproton( or any kind of antimatter) is egnited the energy efficiency is 100% In other words antimatter energy is ~100% more powerful in comparison to nuclear(:
Furdermore antimatter can be stored. It is stored in boxes who have strong magnets arround them. The problem is that u need a lot of energy to keep this magnets running. Thanx to this magnets the antimatter can "flow" in the middle of the box. But if the magnets stop...the antimatter will "fall" and annihilate with the matter of the container.
|One more thing. One quarter (1/4) of a gram of antimatter when(if) annihilated has a 800 meter radius of explosion. Furdermore antimatter do not expell radioation ar any of the kind when egnited.

antmater reactors will probably be the best use, allthough a Antimatter rifle would be fun, bu the bullet would have to be highly magnetic.