After watching Angels and Daemons, Alan believes that antimatter weapons are possible. He even went so far as to send me http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/Spotlight/SpotlightAandD-en.html to show that it is possible. Can someone tell him that it's not possible, under any circumstances, ever?
Alan believes antimatter weapons are possible.
- Thread starter K.I.L.E.R
- Start date
I have antimatter weapons in my garage, im also selling them on ebay
Of course its possible under certain circumstances. Like the article said, 2 billion years from now CERN could have produced enough antimatter to create a 20 Kiloton bomb. We have the means to store it and control it, those means will only become more capable with time.
The only limitation is in the production of antimatter. Current methods clearly make it impractical and to all intents and purposes, impossible with todays technology.
To say that we will never come up with a better, more efficient way to produce anti matter though is in my opinion, the height or arrogance. Regardless of whether its the entire scientific community or the worlds top scientist saying it, I just don't buy it because it implies that we already know everything. That there is nothing else to know or discover about the universe.
A few hundred years ago it was scientific "fact" that the sun orbited the Earth and that the Earth was flat. As recently as a few years ago it was scientific fact that there was no way to travel somwehere at greater than the speed of light and yet now there are ways of warping space to make that possible under investigation.
Who can say with absolute certainty that there is not some as yet unknown way to convert standard matter into anti matter in a relatively efficient way?
The only limitation is in the production of antimatter. Current methods clearly make it impractical and to all intents and purposes, impossible with todays technology.
To say that we will never come up with a better, more efficient way to produce anti matter though is in my opinion, the height or arrogance. Regardless of whether its the entire scientific community or the worlds top scientist saying it, I just don't buy it because it implies that we already know everything. That there is nothing else to know or discover about the universe.
A few hundred years ago it was scientific "fact" that the sun orbited the Earth and that the Earth was flat. As recently as a few years ago it was scientific fact that there was no way to travel somwehere at greater than the speed of light and yet now there are ways of warping space to make that possible under investigation.
Who can say with absolute certainty that there is not some as yet unknown way to convert standard matter into anti matter in a relatively efficient way?
Silent_Buddha
Legend
In other words, everything is possible...
But not everything is probable...
Regards,
SB
But not everything is probable...
Regards,
SB
The link is entirely accurate, but given its contents I don't understand why your friend thinks that its possible or a proof of concept -- in fact it says the reverse....
Blazkowicz
Legend
if we build machines for the purpose of antimatter production, we might be able to use it to propell a small unmanned space probe on long distance (beyond jupiter or saturn where the sun is quite far away already). Just like using fuel cells in the Apollo programs, it's incredibly wasteful of $$$ as an energy medium, but for space use it might be considered, as launching heavy-weight stuff is even more wasteful.
An anti-proton beam might also be used to destroy cancer cells, I remember research in that direction a few years ago ; the beam can be precisely collimated so it toast just at the right distance, whereas old-style cold war radiations damage cells on the whole trajectory.
And as a weapon, it feels stupid. Use nukes instead, you can afford lots of them if you're able to build a antimatter weapon anyway. And I don't know what's the use of a hand grenade with the power of a Hiroshima bomb.
An anti-proton beam might also be used to destroy cancer cells, I remember research in that direction a few years ago ; the beam can be precisely collimated so it toast just at the right distance, whereas old-style cold war radiations damage cells on the whole trajectory.
And as a weapon, it feels stupid. Use nukes instead, you can afford lots of them if you're able to build a antimatter weapon anyway. And I don't know what's the use of a hand grenade with the power of a Hiroshima bomb.
I meant what was the proof of concept model, and what are the chances it could be wrong in the future?
Well, that's a bit of a ridiculous example, isn't it?
Say someone steals a DoD laptop, and rather than using something like "HiJack This" to find it, you instead just send out a signal that causes the fucker to explode. Not "nuclear bomb, take out the city" explode, just enough to destroy the laptop and perhaps whoever is carrying it.
Antimatter might enable such an explosive device to be small enough to be similar in size to a surface-mount resistor on the main PCB. How would you know which one to remove, if you even knew such a thing existed?
I think there are far more interesting weaponry applications of antimatter than a hand grenade with a 20KT explosive capacity...
Antimatter bombs with huge explosive capacity would make great astroid diverters.
Still, as I said above, the applications for antimatter depend on how expensive it is to manufacture. With current technology and methods its applications are very limited but say we discover a new and pretty simple way of converting matter into anti-matter on mass....
It would certainly have applications in power generation and could end up being a lot more efficient than nukes (both in terms of size and cost).
Still, as I said above, the applications for antimatter depend on how expensive it is to manufacture. With current technology and methods its applications are very limited but say we discover a new and pretty simple way of converting matter into anti-matter on mass....
It would certainly have applications in power generation and could end up being a lot more efficient than nukes (both in terms of size and cost).
Blazkowicz
Legend
to divert asteroids you want a constant, low intensity push rather than an explosion I believe. Antimatter would still be great for that.
But again you can use nuclear reactors and ion engines if that's cheaper.
But again you can use nuclear reactors and ion engines if that's cheaper.