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Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => General Internet News => Topic started by: JamesR on September 22, 2002, 03:24:17 PM
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Physicists have succussfuly created (http://news.com.com/2100-1001-958719.html?tag=fd_top) anti-hydrogen particles, bringing the concept of antimatter from science fiction into reality.
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From what I heard, the experiment could not be replicated by other researchers - often a good sign of a hoax. But of course antimatter isn't impossible. It's actually very easy to make the particles to build it with - the hard part is trying to stop contact with normal matter, which it mutally annihilates.
I don't see much of a practical use in this, apart from high-energy physics experiments: it takes more energy to produce antimatter than you get from it as a power source, so you can forget the Star Trek "antimatter-powered ships". However, saying that, a few grams of anti-hydrogen can release more energy than the biggest hydrogen bomb, so it can easily be used - and probably will be used - as a weapon of mass destruction. Just what we needed.
Good news is, we are centuries away from being capable of gathering a few grams of it. Which is just as well. The only thing more startling than human ingenuity is human stupidity.
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It's very interesting that larger amounts of anti-H have been created.
But the actrual creation of such particles is not new at all (as is also hinted in the article), Positron - electron pairs are hinted in many reactions. And still we are a long way from the science- fiction use of such particles - they cannot be stored and live generally a very short period of time. For the forseeable future anti-matter is going to remain a mere mathematical and physical curiosity, only interesting to the scientific community.
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SlimJim
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Yup, that's basicly the news here. The creation of a large amount of antimatter atoms (50,000). That's all...
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From what I heard, the experiment could not be replicated by other researchers - often a good sign of a hoax.
'Cold fusion' revisited? ;-)
Yet the process described in the article is not that new and/or revolutioneary. The problem is, as always, to interpret what you see...
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SlimJim
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I'm actually tempted to believe in cold fusion for the simple reason ... Why should two eminent (but dont ask me who they were) scientists destroy their reputations with a declaration that cold fusion was possible but could not be replicated. :-o
Something doesn't sound quite right to me.
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Erm, so are we saying that the AmigaOne is made of anti-matter, and they are having problems creating enough to be able to put it on general release? :-D
Chris
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I doubt cold fusion was an elaborate hoax on their part. The two scientists, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, were probably 100% certain of their findings back in '89. But they made the mistake of being too enthusiastic. They didn't go through the proper scientific channels (with painstaking independent controls before publication) but went directly to media. Thus the whole thing blew up in their faces as a huge scandal.
On the other hand, it wasn't very clever to deny other researchers access to their labs afterwards. Sorts of implies guilt in a way doesn't it?
But I must say that I feel sorry for them as it turned out. Chances are (albeit it seems extremely improbable if you know the physics involved) that they were onto something but never got a chance to develop it further because of being over-enthusiastic.
Then again, that particular experiment was very simple- and was later extensvely tried by others- so one should think that someone should have stumbled onto their solution by now...
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SlimJim
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Erm, so are we saying that the AmigaOne is made of anti-matter, and they are having problems creating enough to be able to put it on general release?
Yes that is what we are saying. Good thing you spotted that one.
:-D
(It would be something wouldn't it?)
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SlimJim
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Good news is, we are centuries away from being capable of gathering a few grams of it. Which is just as well. The only thing more startling than human ingenuity is human stupidity.
....... Humans are silly... it's not a news..... :-(
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Good news is, we are centuries away from being capable of gathering a few grams of it. Which is just as well. The only thing more startling than human ingenuity is human stupidity.
:roll: Don't be too sure; any physicist will tell you that the two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
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However, saying that, a few grams of anti-hydrogen can release more energy than the biggest hydrogen bomb, so it can easily be used - and probably will be used - as a weapon of mass destruction. Just what we needed.
LOL! :-D
Maybe if we annihilate our selves, we'd do the rest of the universe a big favor. :-)
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We won't kill our selves. I'm sure there are other races worse then us. any way it's on step close to the star trek thingy. :-D
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I'm sure there are other races worse then us
I doubt that. On the other hand, there is no way for us to know unless you know something I don't... :-o :-o :-o
Elvis has left the building!
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Fleishmann and Pons were a pair of Chemical Engineers running experiments for a different reason and got some odd Voltage readings - they leapt to the conclusion that energy was being got out of their experiment of a certain order, and went to the press.
big mistake - should have gone and found some physicists and/or tried to verify their results first !
(and that includes setting up the same experiment again from scratch - preferably having someone else do it ! - repeatability :roll: )
however, it did provide the basis for an interesting thought experiment in my A-level class !
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Damn does this mean I am not geek enough? I have no idea what you all are talking about ;-)
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@ redlumloa
Yep, you're out of the loop [---- or does one say 'hoop'?].
And we (all of us) have secretely decided we won't talk to you until you have read up on atomic/nuclear physics and quantum-field theory. So there. Now you know.
:-D
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SlimJim
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Anti-matter is old hat...
The big thing is that they have collected a small blob of it and can do a nice experiment on it...
They can measure the spectrum/absorbsion lines and see if they are the same as normal hydrogen.
They should be, if they are not then we will know that our assumptions off the big bang and production of matter/anti-matter in the first instant of creation was correct...
I FIRMLY BELIEVE THAT THE FINDINGS WILL BE CORRECT.
CPT invariance is built into the very nature of the cosmos. :-D
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They *say* they have collected a blob of it...
But if they have, they can also test one other thing - to see if antimatter generates anti-gravity rather than gravity. I'm sure it doesn't: all of physics points against it, but proving it is always better, if not essential.
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No, anti-gravity isn`t related to anti-matter.
Anti-matter is just like normal matter, or it should be... ( that is the experiment that they will preform).
All the normal properties should be present , like magnatism, conservation of energy, gravity, etc...
If it isn`t, then we have to revise most of modern day physics...
:-D
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No, anti-gravity isn`t related to anti-matter.
I know that, you know that, but it still has to be absolutely proven.
There is one thing different with antimatter - its less "stable" than matter, even if just by an infinitesmimal amount, otherwise there wouldn't have been a universe after the big bang. Maybe this new reseach can find out exactly why this is true. If it isn't hoaxed, that is.
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If i remember correctly , some russian physisist (Andrei Sakharov?) proposed that the creation of anti-matter to matter was slightly biased towards matter... 1 BILLION TO ONE...
I think he calculated the proportion of protons to photons
( the product or matter anti-matter annialation)
from the after glow of the Big bang...
This one sided ness was probably related to the creation of the direction to time and the superinflation period.
The symetery breaking of higher dimentions into
our present 3 directions + time ( and the hidden ones that have compactified) was one sided by nature.
The stability of anti-matter SHOULD be the same as matter. (current theories predict that the proton is unstable; testable, but unproven)
As you said we still have to prove this new oppertunity. but i for one have my money on the current model of the big-bang. :-D
i think we should know by next month if the text books will have to be re-written.