Is the warp drive ready Mr. Scott?

[Darth Biscuit]

http://techland.time.com/2011/06/06/lightning-in-a-bottle-antimatter-trapped-for-nearly-17-minutes/?hpt=hp_t2

How'd they pull it off for over 16 minutes? Physicists working on the ALPHA experiment at the world's largest particle physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland "loaded" the trap by producing "anti-atoms" (sounds so Ed Wood, no?). Those anti-atoms were created in a process that involved "merging cold plasmas." Okay, so antimatter is kind of like lightning—another type of plasma—or at least has a relationship to it, in terms of how it's produced.

The scientists initially created a bunch of antiprotons, cooled them using "cold electron plasma," merged that with specially prepared positrons, and presto—antihydrogen atoms! Since antihydrogen atoms are impervious to electricity, the scientists used superconducting magnets to corral them long enough to conduct measurements

[Doyle]

I felt stupid reading that.

[Darth Biscuit]

:lol:

[YoungPanthers89]

so this means we can destroy more poo right?

[4Corners]

[4Corners]

LESS GEEK, MORE *****.

[SorthNarolina]

cool, quantum physics is fun to learn about but i would never want to take a graded test on it.

[Darth Biscuit]

I post a thread about boobs and people talk about food...

I post a thread about physics and people post boobs...

the huddle!!!

[blackcatgrowl]

I post a thread about boobs and people talk about food...

I post a thread about physics and people post boobs...

the huddle!!!

Please, post more bew.... I mean physics threads.

Oh... back on topic...

This is actually really cool... even more dangerous than nuclear tech and scary as hell, but cool.

Did you know that if just one kilogram of Antimater (slightly above two pounds), were to come into contact with regular matter, the resulting explosion would release as much energy as the largest Nuclear Weapon ever set off? (Tsar Bomba - 50 Megaton explosion)

http://www.edwardmuller.com/right17.htm

Very, very dangerous stuff they are playing with.

[YourManInAmsterdam]

Didn't I read somewhere that they managed to hang on to this anti-matter for something like 15 minutes, which is basically an eternity given what we're used to?

I wonder if they do tours at LHC. This might be the perfect long weekend for me!

I love physics, but the math kills me.

[Kuech Da Sneak]

I honestly can't see us harnessing antimatter within the next 50 years. I mean, I'm sure scientists said the same thing about nuclear power in the 20s and 30s, but fusion doesn't even compare to the reactions that antimatter can produce.

Harnessing antimatter might be the only viable way of interstellar travel we can think of(so far), but I wouldn't want to be a researcher around that stuff, no matter how little they produce.

[Darth Biscuit]

Can I have an anti-matter toaster? I like my waffles nice and crisp...

[SorthNarolina]

very true.

The coolest thing about it is that most of it seems to make absolutely no sense.

for example... did you know that according to quantum physics, a particle of matter can exist in two different places, miles or even light-years apart, at the same time??? when scientists started discovering little factoids like this, new theories about the universe, such as parallel universes and extra dimensions of space started springing up.

I just think that it is facinating how little we really know about the world around us, and how strange it really is.

yeah it's pretty crazy. At that point i do not want to get into the math. I remembered i learned the most basic of algebra in like 5th grade. I looked at my brother's calculus textbook and crapped my pants. Now I've done well in a few calculus courses but fug no to quantum physics. Weird thing is i would be way more interested in learning quantum physics than calculus.