One step closer to capturing antimatter

[jimmy olsen]

What's the military potential of this?

Non-existant.

You could destroy a city with just a few grams.

[Martim Silva]

I don't want to rain in citizen k's parade, but we have had antimatter for decades now...

You all know we have positron emission treatments, right?

And you DO know that Positrons are simply the anti-matter equivalents of electrons, right?

In other words, when the doctors say they're doing positronic stuff, they're simply throwing antimatter at you (usually into your brain) in order to destroy the problematic tissues that are made of matter....

[DontSayBanana]

I thought it took more energy to make then it would put out.

No clue. If they manage to quantify antimatter, several laws of physics are going to have to be rewritten anyway. I wonder what kind of, if any, reaction would occur, since all of our energy sources thus far rely on the law of conservation of energy; all our energy is achieved through manipulation of matter; not destruction of matter. If LCE holds true, then we'd have to find a way to manually destroy equal amounts of both matter and antimatter simultaneously, but since that would be a new reaction, who the hell knows what kind of energy output you would achieve?

[citizen k]

I don't want to rain in citizen k's parade, but we have had antimatter for decades now...

You all know we have positron emission treatments, right?

And you DO know that Positrons are simply the anti-matter equivalents of electrons, right?

In other words, when the doctors say they're doing positronic stuff, they're simply throwing antimatter at you (usually into your brain) in order to destroy the problematic tissues that are made of matter....

I take it you didn't read the article.

[DontSayBanana]

Hmm, something I noticed after finally reading through the article- I didn't realize we had quantified the energy output already- if that much antimatter is being held at the galactic center, what's the mechanism that's keeping it there and keeping it from leaking into everything else? If it's the concentration of stars functioning as a huge plasma trap, why couldn't we extract the positrons from our own star?

[The Brain]

I don't want to rain in citizen k's parade, but we have had antimatter for decades now...

You all know we have positron emission treatments, right?

And you DO know that Positrons are simply the anti-matter equivalents of electrons, right?

In other words, when the doctors say they're doing positronic stuff, they're simply throwing antimatter at you (usually into your brain) in order to destroy the problematic tissues that are made of matter....

I take it you didn't read the article.

IIRC Venezuela has antimatter bombs. The war against Colombia is practically won already.

[jimmy olsen]

I don't want to rain in citizen k's parade, but we have had antimatter for decades now...

You all know we have positron emission treatments, right?

And you DO know that Positrons are simply the anti-matter equivalents of electrons, right?

In other words, when the doctors say they're doing positronic stuff, they're simply throwing antimatter at you (usually into your brain) in order to destroy the problematic tissues that are made of matter....

I take it you didn't read the article.

IIRC Venezuela has antimatter bombs. The war against Colombia is practically won already.

Where did that come from?

[The Brain]

I don't want to rain in citizen k's parade, but we have had antimatter for decades now...

You all know we have positron emission treatments, right?

And you DO know that Positrons are simply the anti-matter equivalents of electrons, right?

In other words, when the doctors say they're doing positronic stuff, they're simply throwing antimatter at you (usually into your brain) in order to destroy the problematic tissues that are made of matter....

I take it you didn't read the article.

IIRC Venezuela has antimatter bombs. The war against Colombia is practically won already.

Where did that come from?

It was put forward some time ago that war between Venezuela and Colombia was imminent and that all around swell guy Chavez would kick Colon ass.

[Valmy]

Where did that come from?

You don't remember Martim and his invincible alliance of Cuba-Venezuela destroying the Neo-conservative corrupt oligarchy of Columbia?

[jimmy olsen]

Where did that come from?

You don't remember Martim and his invincible alliance of Cuba-Venezuela destroying the Neo-conservative corrupt oligarchy of Columbia?

Yeah, but it was kind of random for Brain to throw that out there.

[The Brain]

Where did that come from?

You don't remember Martim and his invincible alliance of Cuba-Venezuela destroying the Neo-conservative corrupt oligarchy of Columbia?

Yeah, but it was kind of random for Brain to throw that out there.

I was ever so subtly hinting at the... quality of some of Martim's posts.

[The Brain]

The war anti-materialized btw.

[jimmy olsen]

Where did that come from?

You don't remember Martim and his invincible alliance of Cuba-Venezuela destroying the Neo-conservative corrupt oligarchy of Columbia?

Yeah, but it was kind of random for Brain to throw that out there.

I was ever so subtly hinting at the... quality of some of Martim's posts.

Ah, I didn't notice who Citizen K was quoting there. Carry on. 

[Neil]

What's the military potential of this?

Non-existant.

You could destroy a city with just a few grams.

Yeah, but a few grams is also 300 septillion positrons, which at the current rate of generation would take 27 million years.

[Neil]

I don't want to rain in citizen k's parade, but we have had antimatter for decades now...

You all know we have positron emission treatments, right?

And you DO know that Positrons are simply the anti-matter equivalents of electrons, right?

In other words, when the doctors say they're doing positronic stuff, they're simply throwing antimatter at you (usually into your brain) in order to destroy the problematic tissues that are made of matter....

Actually, positron emission tomography is a diagnostic technique.  The positrons aren't actually fired into your body.  Rather, you are injected with a radionuclide which produces positrons as it decays.  A sensor rig detects gamma rays produced by the reaction and provides a nice 3D image of your body.

To use positrons to annihilate selected tissues is far outside the realm of possibility right now, and is far outside the realm of common sense in any event.  Even the annihilation of a single red blood cell would generate an explosion of roughly a kiloton.