Ok, I know this again, is not my field of expertise, however, I would very much like to know more about anti-matter.

Basically, I would like to know if there is anti-matter for every element? Since there is a Mg, is there and Anti-Mg, or an anti-plutonium, or an anti-gold?

When matter and anti-matter collide, does it release energy? Can the energy be harvested, or used practically?

Anything more to add would be helpful!

Thanks much!

I guess you could make an anti-element of anything really (I think only H has been made, though). And about the collision thing, yes, annihilation happens (both particles are converted to energy). And yes, it could be harvested, yet making anti-matter requires so much energy that it's useless to then turn it into energy. If there was a natural source of it, anti-matter would be a tremendous energy source. I personally can't see any use for it except a) having much energy in a small package, for example using anti-matter engines in spacecraft (if you turned a mass of 1kg into energy, you could drive a car with that energy for over 100 000 years) or b) using it as weaponry, which would of course be a terrible misuse of it.

how does one create anti-matter. What is the process of making an anti-element?

They are doing this at the Cern Switzerland Particle Acellerator. They have an excellent web site at http://Http://livefromcern.web.cern.ch/livefromcern/antimatter/

 

aguy2

 

"There is a relatively high probability that we and the universe around us are involved in an ongoing, staged process of self-creation; wherein and whereby the creator of us and the universe around us is attempting to create itself."

I turned green with envy when students of another Finnish high school got to visit CERN. :<

I can't really imagine being able to contain anti-matter since it would just annihilate anything it was contained in. hehe.

I can't really imagine being able to contain anti-matter since it would just annihilate anything it was contained in. hehe.

 

Magnetic trap. Doesn't touch anything for a while, if you've got a good vacuum.

how many types of anti-matter are there? Is there one for every element?

how many types of anti-matter are there? Is there one for every element?

They have only created anti-Hydrogen so far.

hmm...how exactly was that done?

Im a very curious kinda guy. It truly is a very interesting topic

I bet it was done just by shooting positrons at anti-protons, at CERN.

hmm...how exactly was that done?

Im a very curious kinda guy. It truly is a very interesting topic

 

Here you go.

hmm...what about isotopes like tridium? would those be affected by the anti-hydrogen?

hmm...what about isotopes like tridium? would those be affected by the anti-hydrogen?

 

Why wouldn't they? Tritium, like EVERY atom in existance, is made up of the same basic particles; neutrons, protons, and electrons. (Well, protium only contains protons and electrons, but that's nitpicking. ) So anti-matter would not care what it is that it's destroying.

"So anti-matter would not care what it is that it's destroying."

 

As long as it has an opposite charge, it doesn't. And that's the reason you could make disintegralicious weapons with it.

Erm...

The controlled production of antihydrogen observed in ATHENA is a great technological and scientific event. Even more so because ATHENA has produced antihydrogen in unexpectedly abundant quantities.

Where exactly do you hold these unexpectedly abundant quantities... and what do you do with them when you're done examining them?

PET scans use the whole antimatter thing to make scans of your brain and other things. It uses an isotope of Fluorine that decays to give off a positron that is so attracted to electrons that it collides almost immediately upon creation. This gives off two photons in opposite directions, to conserve momentum. These are back traced to give a 3D type scan. Positron is a positively charged electron, in essence. And anti-proton is a negatively charged proton, essentially. But there can't be an anti-neutron, due to the fact that it has no charge. Right?

last i checked a neutron consisted of an electron and a proton, so i would imagine that a positron and negatively charged proton united as if like a neutron would be an anti-neutron

last i checked a neutron consisted of an electron and a proton, so i would imagine that a positron and negatively charged proton united as if like a neutron would be an anti-neutron

 

I assume that you get this from the fact that a neutron can emit an electron and thereby transmute into a proton, beta decay. But a proton can emit a positron(like the fluorine isotope) and become a neutron. Does this make a proton a neutron and a positron? That would mean it was really a proton and an electron and a positron. No, these bosons are actually made of quarks. In fact a proton is 2 up and a down while a neutron is 2 down and an up.

"PET scans use the whole antimatter thing to make scans of your brain and other things. It uses an isotope of Fluorine that decays to give off a positron that is so attracted to electrons that it collides almost immediately upon creation. This gives off two photons in opposite directions, to conserve momentum. These are back traced to give a 3D type scan."

 

Yeah, my dad used to do that stuff. I think he said they used carbon-10 mostly. The isotope depends greatly on where the medicine they're testing goes, though. Carbon is used a lot since most medicines have carbon in them, which can be replaced by a carbon-10.

 

And about the beta- and beta+, they also emit anti-neutrinos and neutrinos respectively, for those who didn't know.

last i checked a neutron consisted of an electron and a proton

 

Whatever you checked was wrong.

 

A proton is made up of three quarks, uud (two "up" quarks and one "down")

A neutron is udd

 

A neutron can decay into a proton (d->u quark), but the opposite can happen as well.

But there can't be an anti-neutron, due to the fact that it has no charge. Right?

 

There are antineutrons. They are also neutral.

what affect would an anti-neutron, since it also has no charge

The antineutron will have the opposite magnetic moment of the neutron.

magnetic moment? what affect would that have on the atoms' collision/reaction?