Matter/Anti-matter

Supreme_Warlord · Post by **Supreme_Warlord** » 2002-10-03 03:36am

Greetings,
Need some advice regarding sceintific validity on a concept for a piece of fiction I am working on. Is it plausible to have technology that can change the very form of matter, i.e. turn matter into anti-matter and vice versa?
Greanted this would require some major convoluted technobabble, but does it break any scientific laws?

Thanks.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2002-10-03 12:29pm

Yes. It violates the law of conservation of quantum numbers. In order to, say, convert an electron into a positron, you'd have to change the charge from -1 to +1. The right and left sides of the equation would not balance. Where does the -1 charge go? Where does the +1 charge come from? The case would be the same with spin.

There are extreme cases where a particle under the influence of exceptionally strong forces (black holes) would essentially "forget" all other quantum numbers aside from its momentum and energy, however. But momentum and energy must always be conserved. Luckily for you, the rest energy of a particle and its anti-particle analogue are exactly the same.

So, take from this what you will.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2002-10-03 01:40pm

only if your feeling totally insane, then yes, you can break any law of physics you like as long as you do not try to explain it, under any circumstances leave it as clarketech and you should be alright, to make it credible give yiour characters no idea of how it works.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2002-10-03 03:58pm

Necron give good advice. In my sci-fi universe, they relay on 'ion cannons', 'folding space', 'ion particle shielding', 'antiion annhilation drives' and 'antiparticle torpedeos'

They're just cool names; I know what they do but have no idea how they work. Oh well.

victorhadin · Post by **victorhadin** » 2002-10-03 03:58pm

Anti-hydrogen has actually been created in a particle accelerator before. Which one I am not too sure; you'll have to look that up.

It does however take prodigious amounts of energy, and storage of the scant atoms you get is difficult.

victorhadin · Post by **victorhadin** » 2002-10-03 03:59pm

CERN maybe.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 2002-10-03 04:13pm

too bad it takes a lot of energy to make antimatter using current tech.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2002-10-03 05:27pm

Anti-hydrogen has actually been created in a particle accelerator before. Which one I am not too sure; you'll have to look that up.

It does however take prodigious amounts of energy, and storage of the scant atoms you get is difficult.

They didn't turn an atom of hydrogen into anti-hydrogen. What they did was slam some nuclei together with sufficient kinetic energy so that a new particle with characteristics determined by quantum number solutions would be created. So, they created a positron and an ant-proton and let them orbit. It wasn't very stable, only lasting a few nanoseconds because of all the electrons and protons for the anti-hydrogen to react with and annihilate.

Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi · Post by **Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi** » 2002-10-03 06:19pm

Could you turn matter into antimatter if you balanced it out by turning antimatter into matter? Well, I just threw that in, and it probably won't make sense. And that would require lots of energy, and it would make more sense just to keep them the same.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2002-10-03 07:30pm

Could you turn matter into antimatter if you balanced it out by turning antimatter into matter? Well, I just threw that in, and it probably won't make sense. And that would require lots of energy, and it would make more sense just to keep them the same.

Exactly. Even if you could, it'd be useless.

victorhadin · Post by **victorhadin** » 2002-10-04 08:38am

Durandal wrote:
Anti-hydrogen has actually been created in a particle accelerator before. Which one I am not too sure; you'll have to look that up.

It does however take prodigious amounts of energy, and storage of the scant atoms you get is difficult.
They didn't turn an atom of hydrogen into anti-hydrogen.

Well cheers and all for the impromptu education, but I knew that.

salm · Post by **salm** » 2002-10-04 09:15am

that was in swizerland, right?