Well, as long as antimatter is fusing with other antimatter, it should give the same amount of energy as the comparable normal-matter reaction, but you'll still get a few hundred times as much energy by simply annihilating the antimatter with normal matter as you would with fusing the antimatter.
Except for a few reactions involving the Weak interaction (e.g. beta decay, in which a neutron decays into a proton), the physics of matter and antimatter are almost perfect mirrors of each other--most of the equations of quantum physics can apply equally to both. In fact, for many purposes, a normal particle traveling forward in time is EXACTLY identical to its antiparticle traveling backward in time, as far as the calculations are concerned.
There is no way to know if the properties of antimatter are the same as matter without actual experimentation. Does antiiron and antioxygen form antirust? For that matter, are antimolecules even possible? Just because the math fits a certain view, doesn't mean that it is an almost perfect mirror of each other. Antimatter physics and chemistry can be far more complicated than we are aware of. So until we create an antimatter fusion reactor, then it is impossible to know that it would give the same amount of energy as a fusion reactor.
It's not quite as simple as "what if it's not like we expect". First of all, there are certain values for particles that must be absolutely conserved ("absolute" in the same sense that conservation of energy is considered absolute). When a particle-antiparticle pair is created, conservation is obeyed for all of the particle pair's properties--the proton's positive charge is balanced by the antiproton's negative charge, and the proton's one Down and two Up quarks are balanced by the one Anti-Down and two Anti-Up quarks, and with opposite color charges, etc. For a particle-antiparticle pair to lack this symmetry would result in such conservation being broken, which means that for example we would be able to create one kind of charge without an equal amount of its anti-charge--e.g. we cold create a magnetic monopole (a magnet that has only a north OR south pole but not both--something which has never been observed). Asking "can I create an unequal particle-antiparticle pair?" is akin to asking "Can I have an action without an equal and opposite reaction?"
It's not quite as simple as "what if it's not like we expect". First of all, there are certain values for particles that must be absolutely conserved ("absolute" in the same sense that conservation of energy is considered absolute). When a particle-antiparticle pair is created, conservation is obeyed for all of the particle pair's properties--the proton's positive charge is balanced by the antiproton's negative charge, and the proton's one Down and two Up quarks are balanced by the one Anti-Down and two Anti-Up quarks, and with opposite color charges, etc. For a particle-antiparticle pair to lack this symmetry would result in such conservation being broken, which means that for example we would be able to create one kind of charge without an equal amount of its anti-charge--e.g. we cold create a magnetic monopole (a magnet that has only a north OR south pole but not both--something which has never been observed). Asking "can I create an unequal particle-antiparticle pair?" is akin to asking "Can I have an action without an equal and opposite reaction?"
Sure, Conversation of Matter, Energy, and Charge must be conserved, but our understanding of Antimatter is almost non-existent. So the rules that we have to follow might not necessarily exist besides conservation. After all, scientists were not sure that antihydrogen would be affected by gravity or have some repulsive effect instead of attractive. Anything past Antiprotons and Positrons is not known. It is also not known whether Deuterium (1 proton, 1 neutron, 1 electron) could have the neutron switched with an antineutron and still exist as long as it doesn't hit a neutron or some particle with a neutron. After all, we hear about positron-electron annihilation and antiproton-proton annihilation, but not proton-positron annihilation, electron-antiproton annihilation, proton-antineutron annihilation, or antiproton-neutron annihilation. So it might be possible to create matter/antimatter particles.
Protons and Neutrons (and their antimatter counterparts) are all made of Quarks and Anti-quarks. For example, a Proton has two Up Quarks and one Down Quark. An anti-Neutron has one Anti-up Quark and two Anti-down Quarks. As such, when they meet, the opposing Quark pairs should annihilate, leaving behind one Up Quark and one Anti-down Quark, which would probably bind to each other to make a meson.
Note that the meson I just described is made up of a Quark of one flavor and an Anti-quark of a different flavor. This is actually normal for mesons. So it is possible to have a particle made up of both matter and antimatter at the same time, but it happens on the Quark level, not on the Proton/Neutron level.
Not derailing the current direction the topic is going, which is fascinating by the way (physics professor, small community college here...), but I have another topic to open for discussion...
Can a particle exist in two places at the same time? Now, I understand the whole of QED and the wave-particle duality of all matter, but my direction here is toward the feasability of time travel. Again, not referencing Einstein's relativity as a way to travel into the future (time is always moving forward, your speed may or may not affect how quickly). Where I'm going with this is:
If we apply the "circle of life" concept to how particles are recycled in nature, then the particles with which you and I are currently made of have been in existence and will be in existence for quite some time, but not necessarily in the form they are currently. Thus, if a person 300 years from now were to travel back in time to our time, the particles with which the traveler is composed would be in existence elsewhere, causing the particles to be in two places at the same time, while neglecting the quantum slit concept...
Your thoughts... if any...
CM
"Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure science." - Edwin Hubble
Well, technically particles are not in either one, two, or any finite number of places at a time--as most people who have studied quantum mechanics in detail know, they have a probability distribution with high probability towards the center getting lower and lower with distance. In a very real sense then, the particle can be considered to be "everywhere at once" within a reasonable distance of its center--just like how an electron cloud encompasses its entire shell around the atomic nucleus instead of having a discrete location in its orbit. This is what allows quantum tunneling--there is always a small probability that a particle is "over there" instead of being "here", but due to Heisenberg uncertainty and the Schroedinger Cat Problem, it is effectively "everywhere at once" until an observation is made. If you had a way of manipulating these probabilities, you could make a particle quantum-teleport an arbitrary distance.
Take a look at the next generation of spacesuits . It is going to be less bulky, be easier to move around and easier to enter and exit the suit. But it does not say if it can protect the Astronauts from the micrometeorites.
Also he is some interesting news on a environmentally friendly car . Hopefully it is going to be safe and won't have any unpleasant smells.
Also what is the largest manned space capsule? Will the Orion be history's largest deep space manned spacecraft or is there a larger space capsule being constructed?
Also he is some interesting news on a environmentally friendly car . Hopefully it is going to be safe and won't have any unpleasant smells.
That story reads almost like something from the Onion. There are also two major questions unaddressed in the article: 1) What happens to all that CO2? It's not the sort of thing you want to just release into the atmosphere en masse. 2) How does Hyundai propose to store the hydrogen such that it won't explode during an accident? It is a highly volatile gas.
On the plus side, if this does work, the waste product from the fuel cell would be water vapor - this just adds an extra step in the water cycle...
Also what is the largest manned space capsule? Will the Orion be history's largest deep space manned spacecraft or is there a larger space capsule being constructed?
Well, Orion is the largest "capsule", though the Shuttle's crew cabin was slightly larger. Orion is designed to carry a maximum of six for space station taxi missions, or four for longer-duration missions, while the Shuttle could carry up to eight (four seats on the flight deck and four on the mid-deck). Orion's Command and Service modules have a combined mass only about the same as the Apollo's Command and Service modules combined despite being physically larger, but that's because Apollo carried about twice as much rocket propellant--Orion will use an extra booster stage for lunar missions, but you don't need all that propellant for Earth orbital missions.
That story reads almost like something from the Onion. There are also two major questions unaddressed in the article: 1) What happens to all that CO2? It's not the sort of thing you want to just release into the atmosphere en masse. 2) How does Hyundai propose to store the hydrogen such that it won't explode during an accident? It is a highly volatile gas.
Actually, even if you do vent the CO2 into the atmosphere, it's no more CO2 than would have been released if you had just burnt the original feedstock from which you are getting your fuel. Yes, that's a lot, but it's still less than petroleum generates.
As for preventing gas leaks, the better pressurized-gas storage tanks these days are made with carbon fiber composite. They're about as well armored and crush-proof as anything of their weight that current technology knows how to create. A vehicle collision between any normal road vehicles at any normal traffic speeds would not be sufficient to break one open--those tanks are literally bulletproof.
Well, Orion is the largest "capsule", though the Shuttle's crew cabin was slightly larger. Orion is designed to carry a maximum of six for space station taxi missions, or four for longer-duration missions, while the Shuttle could carry up to eight (four seats on the flight deck and four on the mid-deck). Orion's Command and Service modules have a combined mass only about the same as the Apollo's Command and Service modules combined despite being physically larger, but that's because Apollo carried about twice as much rocket propellant--Orion will use an extra booster stage for lunar missions, but you don't need all that propellant for Earth orbital missions.
Do you know what the dimensions are? I am look for the height of the capsule, and yes I know it is in a cone shape if anyone decides to mention that. I have found the diameter to be 5 meters or 5.5 meters but I can't find what the height will be?
Since at CERN they can create antimatter, I would use that technology to design a matter-antimatter propulsion or possibly reactor?
Since at CERN they can create antimatter, I would use that technology to design a matter-antimatter propulsion or possibly reactor?
At CERN they can create a few antiparticles, and they can't hold them for long. Current technology is not up to the exploitation of antimatter.
If you took all the antimatter that has been isolated and captured to date, and released it all at the same time, the explosion would barely be big enough to ruin the facility.
It wouldn't even ruin the facility. CERN has, in its history and covering all of its various past and present pieces of equipment, created 10 nanograms of antimatter, and it's one of the most prolific producers. If you gathered all of that up and released it, you'd get about 90 kilojoules, which is not enough to boil a pint of water from room temperature.
If you gathered all of it ever produced by every facility and dropped it in somebody's lap, it would probably be survivable (at least the blast would, the radiation you'd get would be like a lifetime of battling cancer all at once).
That groundbreaking accomplishment with trapping antihydrogen did set a record, but it involved only a few dozen atoms for a few seconds, and took over a billion times more energy than their eventual annihilation released. It's groundbreaking for studying the stuff, but as far as storing and generating power with it, we're like cavemen playing with a funny rock that feels warm when they hold it. Sure, they're playing with a fissile material and probably can imagine how enough of it could heat their food faster than building a fire, but they're not exactly hot on the trail of nuclear power.
Do you know what the dimensions are? I am look for the height of the capsule, and yes I know it is in a cone shape if anyone decides to mention that. I have found the diameter to be 5 meters or 5.5 meters but I can't find what the height will be?
Since at CERN they can create antimatter, I would use that technology to design a matter-antimatter propulsion or possibly reactor?
"The Orion Crew Module (CM) is a 57.5° frustum shape, similar to that of the Apollo Command Module. As projected, the CM will be 5.02 meters (16 ft 6 in) in diameter and 3.3 meters (10 ft 10 in) in length, with a mass of about 8.5 metric tons (19,000 lb). It is to be built by the Lockheed Martin Corporation. It will have more than 50% more volume than the Apollo capsule, which had an interior volume of 5.9 m3 (210 cu ft), and will carry four to six astronauts"
As far as antimatter-based propulsion goes, it will probably be the 22nd century before we can achieve anything capable of competing with easier-to-achieve systems. With stuff that we already know how to build, we could create a manned spacecraft capable of going to the outer planets and back, using VASIMR engines powered by a fission reactor, and we could have it ready to fly five to eight years from when we allocate the funds to build it. In the 50+ year time frame, we may achieve an open-cycle fusion plasma drive, which would shorten the flight time by an expected factor of four or more.
"The Orion Crew Module (CM) is a 57.5° frustum shape, similar to that of the Apollo Command Module. As projected, the CM will be 5.02 meters (16 ft 6 in) in diameter and 3.3 meters (10 ft 10 in) in length, with a mass of about 8.5 metric tons (19,000 lb). It is to be built by the Lockheed Martin Corporation. It will have more than 50% more volume than the Apollo capsule, which had an interior volume of 5.9 m3 (210 cu ft), and will carry four to six astronauts"
As far as antimatter-based propulsion goes, it will probably be the 22nd century before we can achieve anything capable of competing with easier-to-achieve systems. With stuff that we already know how to build, we could create a manned spacecraft capable of going to the outer planets and back, using VASIMR engines powered by a fission reactor, and we could have it ready to fly five to eight years from when we allocate the funds to build it. In the 50+ year time frame, we may achieve an open-cycle fusion plasma drive, which would shorten the flight time by an expected factor of four or more.
How do you know that 3.3 metres is the height of the Orion spacecraft? It does not say on wikipedia. How do you know the technology will be available in the 22nd century, CERN is using a Antimatter beam to create Antimatter, maybe scientists/engineers could scale the technology to a larger size if possible? Cold fusion (if it is real) will soon be available. NASA is researching cold fusion as well. What happens to the waste produce from the fission reactor? Also John Slough from University of Washington is researching Fusion Driven Propulsion, which they have built and are testing now. It could be available within 50 years if nothing goes wrong. But they have not mentioned about the waste produced.
Ok, the paragraph about the Orion command module was quoted verbatim from the Wikipedia article that I linked in that post. The "tip" of the cone is cut off (as on the Apollo capsule), which is why the 3.3 meter height is less than the height of a cone with diameter 5.02 meters and angle of 57 degrees.
As for the "22nd century" comment, I did not say that fusion propulsion would remain beyond our technology until the year 2100 (i.e. an estimated 85 or so years at minimum), but rather that I think it will take until then to make it cheaper, more reliable, and more efficient than VASIMR. All propulsion systems in their early years of development are less effective than the already-existing mature technology--for example gasoline piston engines were invented about 1876, but were not advanced enough to replace steam locomotives or ship engines until just before World War One.
For another example of high-technology not being "cheaper, safer, or more efficient" immediately upon its invention, look at fission powerplants. We have had them for over sixty years, but they still are not significantly cheaper than fossil fuel power, and the second-worst nuclear accident in history happened just a couple of years ago (the Fukushima meltdown).
CERN is using a Antimatter beam to create Antimatter, maybe scientists/engineers could scale the technology to a larger size if possible?
The CERN technology is not a matter of scale, it's efficiency. It takes over one billion times more energy to produce an antihydrogen atom than that atom releases upon annihilation, antiparticles are only produced a in a few out of every million collisions, they cannot be stored for more than a few seconds, and the whole process becomes less efficient with scale or speed. If you scaled it up until it could power a light bulb, it would occupy half of Europe and use dozens of times the world's current electrical generation capacity.
That's an efficiency of 0.000000001. For comparison, 0.3 to 0.48 is considered typical for thermonuclear fusion reactors, and the very best has only exceeded 1.0 by a fraction of a percent.
My caveman analogy was perhaps a bit absurd, but still, Pierre and Marie Curie were closer to a nuclear reactor when they were intentionally giving each other radiation burns, and no amount of scaling those experiments up would have actually accomplished anything except killing them faster.
Comments
There is no way to know if the properties of antimatter are the same as matter without actual experimentation. Does antiiron and antioxygen form antirust? For that matter, are antimolecules even possible? Just because the math fits a certain view, doesn't mean that it is an almost perfect mirror of each other. Antimatter physics and chemistry can be far more complicated than we are aware of. So until we create an antimatter fusion reactor, then it is impossible to know that it would give the same amount of energy as a fusion reactor.
Sure, Conversation of Matter, Energy, and Charge must be conserved, but our understanding of Antimatter is almost non-existent. So the rules that we have to follow might not necessarily exist besides conservation. After all, scientists were not sure that antihydrogen would be affected by gravity or have some repulsive effect instead of attractive. Anything past Antiprotons and Positrons is not known. It is also not known whether Deuterium (1 proton, 1 neutron, 1 electron) could have the neutron switched with an antineutron and still exist as long as it doesn't hit a neutron or some particle with a neutron. After all, we hear about positron-electron annihilation and antiproton-proton annihilation, but not proton-positron annihilation, electron-antiproton annihilation, proton-antineutron annihilation, or antiproton-neutron annihilation. So it might be possible to create matter/antimatter particles.
Note that the meson I just described is made up of a Quark of one flavor and an Anti-quark of a different flavor. This is actually normal for mesons. So it is possible to have a particle made up of both matter and antimatter at the same time, but it happens on the Quark level, not on the Proton/Neutron level.
Can a particle exist in two places at the same time? Now, I understand the whole of QED and the wave-particle duality of all matter, but my direction here is toward the feasability of time travel. Again, not referencing Einstein's relativity as a way to travel into the future (time is always moving forward, your speed may or may not affect how quickly). Where I'm going with this is:
If we apply the "circle of life" concept to how particles are recycled in nature, then the particles with which you and I are currently made of have been in existence and will be in existence for quite some time, but not necessarily in the form they are currently. Thus, if a person 300 years from now were to travel back in time to our time, the particles with which the traveler is composed would be in existence elsewhere, causing the particles to be in two places at the same time, while neglecting the quantum slit concept...
Your thoughts... if any...
CM
Also he is some interesting news on a environmentally friendly car . Hopefully it is going to be safe and won't have any unpleasant smells.
Also what is the largest manned space capsule? Will the Orion be history's largest deep space manned spacecraft or is there a larger space capsule being constructed?
On the plus side, if this does work, the waste product from the fuel cell would be water vapor - this just adds an extra step in the water cycle...
Well, Orion is the largest "capsule", though the Shuttle's crew cabin was slightly larger. Orion is designed to carry a maximum of six for space station taxi missions, or four for longer-duration missions, while the Shuttle could carry up to eight (four seats on the flight deck and four on the mid-deck). Orion's Command and Service modules have a combined mass only about the same as the Apollo's Command and Service modules combined despite being physically larger, but that's because Apollo carried about twice as much rocket propellant--Orion will use an extra booster stage for lunar missions, but you don't need all that propellant for Earth orbital missions.
Actually, even if you do vent the CO2 into the atmosphere, it's no more CO2 than would have been released if you had just burnt the original feedstock from which you are getting your fuel. Yes, that's a lot, but it's still less than petroleum generates.
As for preventing gas leaks, the better pressurized-gas storage tanks these days are made with carbon fiber composite. They're about as well armored and crush-proof as anything of their weight that current technology knows how to create. A vehicle collision between any normal road vehicles at any normal traffic speeds would not be sufficient to break one open--those tanks are literally bulletproof.
Do you know what the dimensions are? I am look for the height of the capsule, and yes I know it is in a cone shape if anyone decides to mention that. I have found the diameter to be 5 meters or 5.5 meters but I can't find what the height will be?
Since at CERN they can create antimatter, I would use that technology to design a matter-antimatter propulsion or possibly reactor?
If you took all the antimatter that has been isolated and captured to date, and released it all at the same time, the explosion would barely be big enough to ruin the facility.
If you gathered all of it ever produced by every facility and dropped it in somebody's lap, it would probably be survivable (at least the blast would, the radiation you'd get would be like a lifetime of battling cancer all at once).
That groundbreaking accomplishment with trapping antihydrogen did set a record, but it involved only a few dozen atoms for a few seconds, and took over a billion times more energy than their eventual annihilation released. It's groundbreaking for studying the stuff, but as far as storing and generating power with it, we're like cavemen playing with a funny rock that feels warm when they hold it. Sure, they're playing with a fissile material and probably can imagine how enough of it could heat their food faster than building a fire, but they're not exactly hot on the trail of nuclear power.
According to Wikipedia's article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_(spacecraft)
"The Orion Crew Module (CM) is a 57.5° frustum shape, similar to that of the Apollo Command Module. As projected, the CM will be 5.02 meters (16 ft 6 in) in diameter and 3.3 meters (10 ft 10 in) in length, with a mass of about 8.5 metric tons (19,000 lb). It is to be built by the Lockheed Martin Corporation. It will have more than 50% more volume than the Apollo capsule, which had an interior volume of 5.9 m3 (210 cu ft), and will carry four to six astronauts"
As far as antimatter-based propulsion goes, it will probably be the 22nd century before we can achieve anything capable of competing with easier-to-achieve systems. With stuff that we already know how to build, we could create a manned spacecraft capable of going to the outer planets and back, using VASIMR engines powered by a fission reactor, and we could have it ready to fly five to eight years from when we allocate the funds to build it. In the 50+ year time frame, we may achieve an open-cycle fusion plasma drive, which would shorten the flight time by an expected factor of four or more.
Reference: Project HOPE study document:
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20040010797.pdf
How do you know that 3.3 metres is the height of the Orion spacecraft? It does not say on wikipedia. How do you know the technology will be available in the 22nd century, CERN is using a Antimatter beam to create Antimatter, maybe scientists/engineers could scale the technology to a larger size if possible? Cold fusion (if it is real) will soon be available. NASA is researching cold fusion as well. What happens to the waste produce from the fission reactor? Also John Slough from University of Washington is researching Fusion Driven Propulsion, which they have built and are testing now. It could be available within 50 years if nothing goes wrong. But they have not mentioned about the waste produced.
As for the "22nd century" comment, I did not say that fusion propulsion would remain beyond our technology until the year 2100 (i.e. an estimated 85 or so years at minimum), but rather that I think it will take until then to make it cheaper, more reliable, and more efficient than VASIMR. All propulsion systems in their early years of development are less effective than the already-existing mature technology--for example gasoline piston engines were invented about 1876, but were not advanced enough to replace steam locomotives or ship engines until just before World War One.
For another example of high-technology not being "cheaper, safer, or more efficient" immediately upon its invention, look at fission powerplants. We have had them for over sixty years, but they still are not significantly cheaper than fossil fuel power, and the second-worst nuclear accident in history happened just a couple of years ago (the Fukushima meltdown).
The CERN technology is not a matter of scale, it's efficiency. It takes over one billion times more energy to produce an antihydrogen atom than that atom releases upon annihilation, antiparticles are only produced a in a few out of every million collisions, they cannot be stored for more than a few seconds, and the whole process becomes less efficient with scale or speed. If you scaled it up until it could power a light bulb, it would occupy half of Europe and use dozens of times the world's current electrical generation capacity.
That's an efficiency of 0.000000001. For comparison, 0.3 to 0.48 is considered typical for thermonuclear fusion reactors, and the very best has only exceeded 1.0 by a fraction of a percent.
My caveman analogy was perhaps a bit absurd, but still, Pierre and Marie Curie were closer to a nuclear reactor when they were intentionally giving each other radiation burns, and no amount of scaling those experiments up would have actually accomplished anything except killing them faster.