The Wonders of Antihydrogen..

[drwayne]

I don't think I was critical of your grammar. I did present you with some rules of thumb to
evaluate whether your number make sense. It is a useful skill.

 

[Vax]

I don't mean to sound narrow minded (as the force is most often not strong with me), but can someone please clarify why on the above link they are saying the amount of energy released is so huge with 1kg of water?

I've learned a lot from these questions I've had, but I think every time I've posted I've made someone despise under-grads that much more (not to mention someone who hasn't even graduated high school). I understand you cannot substitute an atom with greater mass than hydrogen to get more energy. MASS IS MASS, ENERGY IS ENERGY, and they are forever interchangeable as energy cannot be created or destroyed. Gotcha. But why does everyone say a kilogram of water has the equivelant energy to close to 10 million gallons of gasoline (assuming 1 kg of matter comes into contact with 1 kg of anti-matter, completely annihilating eachother)?

 

[MeteorWayne]

Because the enrgy from the gasoline is not produced by annihilation, but by a chemical reaction, oxidation. It does not change the matter into energy, it is an exothermic chemical reaction. It is quite inefficient. Whereas a kg of matter and antimatter is converted into 100% energy (there are no leftovers). It is 100% efficient.

 

[Vax]

I understand what you're saying. That actually cleared a lot up (even though it is high school chem stuff)

I messed up the numbers at the beginning. YES my numbers were wrong. It's like screwing up your only visual aid on an oral report. Now can someone try to explain to me the whole faster-than-light thing? Why there isn't enough energy available in the universe to send an object faster than light?

oh yeah and...

no, that is not at all what that means. again you confuse number of particles and the total mass.

a SINGLE Helium releases 4x the energy of a SINGLE hydrogen because it's 4x heavier.

However, any mass of helium gives the same energy as the same mass of hydrogen.

You would need fewer helium atoms for the same energy output, true, but the exact same MASS.

And when you create anti-matter, it's the mass that counts, not the number of particles. So there is no advantage to creating anti-helium over anti-hydrogen. And that's assuming you can just create it from the initial reactions.

If you have to actually fuse the anti-hydrogen to get the helium, it's actually more problematic.

The masses would be the same so the amount of energy would be the same (I was kinda getting there). That's true. But wouldn't you find a balance in efficiency if you consider that it would take less time to make fewer anti-helium, if, let's say, the energy output is 1 helium for every 4 hydrogen (ignoring the fact that anti-hydrogen would be easier to make, and also ignoring all the research for the creation of anti-helium).

What I was saying in earlier posts was that it is more efficient to create 1 anti-osmium instead of 190 anti-hydrogen (even thoough we can [again] make 100 anti-hydrogen per operable second at this day and age).

 

[MeteorWayne]

Actually, it would take longer and be more difficult to creat an anti helium atom. All the antimatter (anti atoms) are created one proton and one electron at a time, then they are combined, before which they have to be contained and moved to the proper place so they can meet the other particle. That's why all the antimatter we've ever created wouldn't even be visible without a microscope, if it hadn't already been destroyed.

 

[drwayne]

"Now can someone try to explain to me the whole faster-than-light thing? Why there isn't enough energy available in the universe to send an object faster than light?"

To accelerate an object with a finite mass to the speed of light in any known/conventional way would
take essentially an infinite amount of energy. There is nothing magic in a matter-antimatter reaction
that gets you around this.

Wayne

 

[Saiph]

Well, it would be easier to store and handle, and (possibly) more time efficient, to create heavy anti-particle atoms directly. But the problem is, as meteorwayne mentions, I don't think you CAN do that.

The process to create antimatter as I understand it results in single anti-protons and anti-electrons (i.e. anti-hydrogen).

 

[drwayne]

And, for all the SciFi implications to the contrary, matter-antimatter is simply a means of energy
storage, it doesn't solve the issues of the "magic" required to deal with FTL. That is a whole
nuther nut to crack. Solve that one, and you will be in the history books for sure.

 

[Vax]

"
[...]To accelerate an object with a finite mass to the speed of light in any known/conventional way would
take essentially an infinite amount of energy. There is nothing magic in a matter-antimatter reaction
that gets you around this.

Wayne

Wouldn't the fact that there are indeed objects with (theoretically) infinite mass prove that ftl is possible alone?

And I know this is a little off subject but if we were to call this new science "magic" we would probably know more about it than we do now, and that is it can only be explained with experimentation and a lot of luck. It's hit and miss. We don't know, and just because something different doesn't sound right and just because it defies all we know about physics doesn't mean it can't be true. FTL travel is considered heresy. Well last time I checked we still to this day like to think we know a lot about physics as a civilization but are really just now figuring the small stuff out.. And we're still not even sure about that!

[just ignore it when I do that... the preaching bit. I start to type, and then I realize that I'm telling this to people who have been explaining the same thing I'm saying for years. Sometimes it just seems a pitty to erase it.]

Actually, it would take longer and be more difficult to creat an anti helium atom. All the antimatter (anti atoms) are created one proton and one electron at a time, then they are combined, before which they have to be contained and moved to the proper place so they can meet the other particle. That's why all the antimatter we've ever created wouldn't even be visible without a microscope, if it hadn't already been destroyed.

^But we're not just talking about using our immaculate power to grab one single anti-electron and one single anti-proton, and combining them to create one single anti-hydrogen atom. We are instead sending them all together, and the opposite sub-atomic particles within each sub-atomic eat eachother up with anti-hydrogen as a product. An electron-positron-pair can be produced when an antiproton gets close to a xenon nucleus, and with some probability the positron will be captured by the antiproton to form antihydrogen. We're not creating them one at a time. We're creating 100 a second on average.

Also they have found a way to stabilize the anti-hydrogen and store it.

[...]The process to create antimatter as I understand it results in single anti-protons and anti-electrons (i.e. anti-hydrogen).

Its not a matter of "if we find a way to create other atoms" it's literally a matter of "when we find the way".. as cliche as it sounds. We found all this stuff out about how to make anti-hydrogen and found out it really wasn't that complicated. We just had no information prior to the experiment.

And I really don't mean to sound like some punk kid to you guys, my curiosity just works in strange ways.

 

[origin]

Wouldn't the fact that there are indeed objects with (theoretically) infinite mass prove that ftl is possible alone?

There are no objects with infinite mass.

 

[Vax]

the singularity of blackholes? Even though they do eventually evaporate.

 

[drwayne]

Just because you have really heavy things doesn't imply you can move them really fast.
(Something I realize every time I look in the mirror)

Wayne

 

[drwayne]

"FTL travel is considered heresy."

No, right now it is just considered impossible.

Now:

Impossible is not always the last word on things, and there are people in the scientific
community who love to figure ways to make the impossible, possible. In fact, most
scientists I have ever known are quite contrarian in nature, and despite what the woos
like to assert, do not automatically assume that Einstein (or whoever else) is always
right. Doing the impossible gets one in the history books after all.

 

[MeteorWayne]

the singularity of blackholes? Even though they do eventually evaporate.

No, the black hole at the milky way has 400 million suns of mass. It does not have infinite mass.

As to whether there is a singularity at the center, who can say? We can't see beyond the event horizon, and we have no physics to handle in detail what happens on the other side. All we really know is that there are 400 million solar masses confined within the event horizon.

 

[Saiph]

On creating heavy anti-atoms...you're right. We may well find out a way. But as I don't know how they'd go about doing it, it's essentially meaningless to talk about how efficient the process could be compared to what we can do now.

For instance it sounds like a single heavy atom is easier than tens or hundreds of hydrogen atoms...but we don't know the energy cost, the required sophistication of the equipment etc...


And as for anti-matter creation being simple...that it is not. In concept, yes. In practice....far, far from it.



On a BH's singularity, I think you're mistaking infinite density for infinite mass. And the density isn't really infinite...it's just undefinable (and incomprehensible) by any system we've worked out so far.

 

[Vax]

(Didn't know where to put this: I could be confusing density with mass but wasn't einsteins main accomplishment explaining that these are interchangeable? Theory of Relativity? I could be WRONG!)

the singularity of blackholes? Even though they do eventually evaporate.

No, the black hole at the milky way has 400 million suns of mass. It does not have infinite mass.

As to whether there is a singularity at the center, who can say? We can't see beyond the event horizon, and we have no physics to handle in detail what happens on the other side. All we really know is that there are 400 million solar masses confined within the event horizon.

The mass of a black hole is forever increasing though, which means it obtains mass at a constant rate. We can prove this by looking at a black hole and noticing that light really isn't escaping the gravity. Electrons really are falling in all the time. Until the end. And I'm not sure but I don't think the end comes because the whangdoodle got tired of eating oompa loompa's and popped.

Also, if you want to say that a black hole is not infinite you are also saying the universe is not infinite.. You would be saying redefining the word "infinite" as an expression to explain that there is no calculable way to determine the mass of something that is forever expanding into infinity until it just decides to stop. I know they are two completely different things (the universe and blackholes) but they both help you think about infinity in a tangible way so to speak.

Did anyone stop to consider that maybe the reason the black hole at the center of our galaxy is 400x the suns mass is because the galaxy is 10 billion years old? The mass is going to get bigger as long as the black hole has fuel (our galaxy, and then I imagine other galaxies, until there is no more). The universe is between 13.5 and 14 billion years old. This either makes our galaxy really old, or the universe really young. Nevertheless the black hole will grow. Just slowly, or infinitely until it can't grow anymore.

 

[MeteorWayne]

First of all, FTL is unrelated to Antihydrogen, unless this thread is headed for the Unexplained. There are plenty of ftl threads there, feel free to post in one.

The mass of a black hole does not increase at a constant rate at all. When a black hile has matter near it that intersects the event horizon, it's mass increase fast. When it is in space with little or no matter around, it's mass increases very slowly, if at all.

Since photons have no mass, they don't contribute to any increase.

The statement "Also, if you want to say that a black hole is not infinite you are also saying the universe is not infinite.. You would be saying redefining the word "infinite" as an expression to explain that there is no calculable way to determine the mass of something that is forever expanding into infinity until it just decides to stop. I know they are two completely different things (the universe and blackholes) but they both help you think about infinity in a tangible way so to speak." really makes no sense, since no one who understand current physics would say that either a black hole or the Universe is infinite.

The black hole at the center of our galaxy is not currently getting bigger at an appreciable rate, since there is very little mass nearby...perhaps some gas, but not very much or the accretion disk would be very hot and emitting large amounts of radiation. It ain't.

Once again, If you think ftl travel is related to Antihydrogen, please look for this thread in The Unexplained tomorrow.