Antimatter Science Fiction becomes Science Fact

[unimatrix 0]

The best use of Antimatter to get useful power maybe as a trigger for a fusion reactor. It would take a realtively small amount to start the reation, which we have the technology today to sustain and draw power from a fusion reactor. The problem is it takes a lot of energy to get the reaction started at this point. The problem with Anti-matter is containment. It is destroyed almost as soon as it's created. Now the other edge of that sword is that it antimatter could also be used to create a 4th generation Clean Fusion weapon. Again remove the current fission trigger (a standard atomic bomb) and replace it with an anti-matter trigger and you have a nice large (or small) thermonuclear weapon without all those nasty lingering after effects such as radioactive fall-out. (our current generation of fusion/thermonuclear/h-bombs are Fission-fusion hybrids. The fission reaction is what produces the fall out)Now a pure fusion bomb is a relatively clean weapon. Most of the radiation released is thermo radiation (heat) and gamma rays. Both are short lived with no long term after effects. In fact, the gamma rays produced in low yeild pure fusion devices might have some good uses, such as sterilizing large areas contimanted with biological agents. The only long term radioactive conquences would be from the neutron-flux (shower of neutrons released by any thermonuclear/fusion reaction) that can be absorbed by several materials making them radioactive, but mostly short term. For instance: Gold will turn into AU-198 which is radioactive for about a week, but there are some other materials that could have some problems like cobalt. Cobalt turns into Cobalt-60 which produces ionizing radiation for about a decade. (7 years half-life) Currently there are "salted nukes" that are laced with Cobalt-59 just to make more fall-out. (enhanced radiation devices). These are Fission-Fusion-Fission weapons (3rd generation nukes). Because pure fusion devices would have the lower side effects, there is an increased chance that they would actually be used since you could make devices from 10 tons upto many megatons and in cases, like eliminating a stockpile of Chemical or biological weapons. So it is a double edged sword. like Atomic energy, it can be used for peaceful power purposes or to create weapons and would be used for both.

[inevitable 0]

Thats sweet! If a few more decades are put into anti matter research we might not need nuclear or non-renewable sources of energy. Then again theres the bad side to everything; this again would fuel even more powerful bombs, and wars would be more deadly.

[Opethian 0]

Wow! That's like Nuclear Energy, except the effects are cleaner and that there is no meltdown (which lasts several thousand years), just one huge explotion literally annihilating any in its blast radius.Anyone ever read the book Angels and Demons? It has some cool anti-matter scenes in it.

[littleweseth1405241521 0]

Regarding the portability of antimatter : I was reading on technocrat.net somewhere that they consider it the only feasible energy source for interplanetary trips, for the mere reason that you have to carry too much fuel if you use something else.The catches are:a) Producing enough antimatter. You only need a gram or a gram and a half to get to Mars, if memory serves correctly... but *only* is a little deceptive in this context. You can't store antimatter in a tank, because... well... it annihilates with the tank, causing large energy release at precisely the wrong time, which isn't cool. You actually end up having to put a giant magnetic containment tank on the ship.... which weighs just as much as if you'd used a nuclear reactor or something.Food for thought :PCheers;-lws

[twitch 0]

I read this a couple of years ago on a rather cool website. How Stuff Works.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/antimatter.htm

The links page is quite useful, more useful information than what is in the rather old article.