Anti-Matter Summary- Essay, Research Paper

Anti-Matter Summary-

Introduction

Ordinary matter has negatively charged electrons

circling a positively charged nuclei. Anti-matter has

positively charged electrons – positrons – orbiting a nuclei

with a negative charge – anti-protons. Only anti-protons

and positrons are able to be produced at this time, but

scientists in Switzerland have begun a series of experiments

which they believe will lead to the creation of the first

anti-matter element — Anti-Hydrogen.

The Research

Early scientists often made two mistakes about

anti-matter. Some thought it had a negative mass, and would

thus feel gravity as a push rather than a pull. If this

were so, the antiproton’s negative mass/energy would cancel

the proton’s when they met and nothing would remain; in

reality, two extremely high-energy gamma photons are

produced. Today’s theories of the universe say that there

is no such thing as a negative mass.

The second and more subtle mistake is the idea that

anti-water would only annihilate with ordinary water, and

could safety be kept in (say) an iron container. This is

not so: it is the subatomic particles that react so

destructively, and their arrangement makes no difference.

Scientists at CERN in Geneva are working on a device

called the LEAR (low energy anti-proton ring) in an attempt

to slow the velocity of the anti-protons to a billionth of

their normal speeds. The slowing of the anti-protons and

positrons, which normally travel at a velocity of that near

the speed of light, is neccesary so that they have a chance

of meeting and combining into anti-hydrogen.

The problems with research in the field of

anti-matter is that when the anti-matter elements touch

matter elements they annihilate each other. The total

combined mass of both elements are released in a spectacular

blast of energy. Electrons and positrons come together and

vanish into high-energy gamma rays (plus a certain number of

harmless neutrinos, which pass through whole planets without

effect). Hitting ordinary matter, 1 kg of anti-matter

explodes with the force of up to 43 million tons of TNT –

as though several thousand Hiroshima bombs were detonated at

once.

So how can anti-matter be stored? Space seems the

only place, both for storage and for large-scale production.

On Earth, gravity will sooner or later pull any anti-matter

into disastrous contact with matter. Anti-matter has the

opposite effect of gravity on it, the anti-matter is ‘pushed

away’ by the gravitational force due to its opposite nature

to that of matter. A way around the gravity problem appears

at CERN, where fast moving anti-protons can be held in a

’storage ring’ around which they constantly move – and kept

away from the walls of the vacuum chamber – by magnetic

fields. However, this only works for charged particles, it

does not work for anti-neutrons, for example.

The Unanswerable Question

Though anti-matter can be manufactured, slowly,

natural anti-matter has never been found. In theory, we

should expect equal amounts of matter and anti-matter to be

formed at the beginning of the universe – perhaps some far

off galaxies are the made of anti-matter that somehow became

separated from matter long ago. A problem with the theory

is that cosmic rays that reach Earth from far-off parts are

often made up of protons or even nuclei, never of

anti-protons or antinuclei. There may be no natural

anti-matter anywhere.

In that case, what happened to it? The most obvious

answer is that, as predicted by theory, all the matter and

anti-matter underwent mutual annihilation in the first

seconds of creation; but why there do we still have matter?

It seems unlikely that more matter than anti-matter should

be formed. In this scenario, the matter would have to

exceed the anti-matter by one part in 1000 million.

An alternative theory is produced by the physicist

M. Goldhaber in 1956, is that the universe divided into two

parts after its formation – the universe that we live in,

and an alternate universe of anti-matter that cannot be

observed by us.

The Chemistry

Though they have no charge, anti-neutrons differ

from neutrons in having opposite ’spin’ and ‘baryon number’.

All heavy particles, like protons or neutrons, are called

baryons. A firm rule is that the total baryon number cannot

change, though this apparently fails inside black holes. A

neutron (baryon number +1) can become a proton (baryon

number +1) and an electron (baryon number 0 since an

electron is not a baryon but a light particle). The total

electric charge stays at zero and the total baryon number at

+1. But a proton cannot simply be annihilated.

A proton and anti-proton (baryon number -1) can join

together in an annihilation of both. The two heavy

particles meet in a flare of energy and vanish, their mass

converted to high-energy radiation wile their opposite

charges and baryon numbers cancel out. We can make

antiprotons in the laboratory by turning this process round,

using a particle accelerator to smash protons together at

such enormous energies that the energy of collision is more

than twice the mass/energy of a proton. The resulting

reaction is written:

+ p p + p + p + p

Two protons (p) become three protons plus an

antiproton(p); the total baryon number before is:

1 + 1 = 2

And after the collision it is:

1 + 1 + 1 – 1 = 2

Still two.

Anti-matter elements have the same properties as

matter properties. For example, two atoms of anti-hydrogen

and one atom of anti-oxygen would become anti-water.

The Article

The article chosen reflects on recent advancements

in anti-matter research. Scientists in Switzerland have

begun experimenting with a LEAR device (low energy

anti-proton ring) which would slow the particle velocity by

a billionth of its original velocity. This is all done in

an effort to slow the velocity to such a speed where it can

combine chemically with positrons to form anti-hydrogen.

The author of the article, whose name was not

included on the article, failed to investigate other

anti-matter research laboratories and their advancements.

The author focused on the CERN research laboratory in

Geneva. ‘The intriguing thing about our work is that it

flies in the face of all other current developments in

particle physics’ .

The article also focused on the intrigue into the

discovering the anti-matter secret, but did not mention much

on the destruction and mayhem anti-matter would cause if not

treated with the utmost care and safety. Discovering

anti-matter could mean the end of the Earth as we know it,

one mistake could mean the end of the world and a release of

high-energy gamma rays that could wipe out the life on earth

in mere minutes.

It was a quite interesting article, with a lot of

information that could affect the entire world. The

article, however, did not focus on the benefits or

disadvantages of anti-matter nor did it mention the

practical uses of anti-matter. They are too expensive to

use for powering rocket ships, and are not safe for

household or industrial use, so have no meaning to the

general public. It is merely a race to see who can make the

first anti-matter element.

Conclusion

As research continues into the field of anti-matter

there might be some very interesting and practical uses of

anti-matter in the society of the future. Until there is a

practical use, this is merely an attempt to prove which

research lab will be the first to manufacture the

anti-matter elements.