Antimatter

2429 Words5 Pages

Really long Physics paper
We stand at the base of a new age. We are just now beginning to learn the intricate details of life, both macroscopic and microscopic. Ultimately these discoveries will benefit all of mankind. Never before have we enjoyed such a golden age for science and discovery. The scientific horizon looks fruitful. One such fruit is the discovery and application of a thing called antimatter. During the next few decades our ability to produce, accumulate, and contain large quantities of antimatter should become feasible, leaving us just to research possible uses for this promising, radically new, form of energy.
Antimatter is exactly what the name suggests. It is the opposite of matter in which the charges associated with electrons and protons are switched. This means a proton and antiproton are attracted to each other. When they collide pane energy is produced in the form of three pions and four gamma rays.
Since their discovery in 1955, antiproton production rates have increased by approximately an order of magnitude (which is one exponential increase) every 2.5 years as seen in fig. 1. It is predicted that a milligram to a gram of antimatter could be produced annually within the next decade. At present the main hinderence to antimatter production is the ability to accumulate, cool, and decelerate the antiprotons.
Antimatter production is a relatively easy concept, but the details are mind bogeling. In 1932, Carl Anderson, was examining tracks produced by cosmic rays in a cloud chamber. One particle made a track like an electron, but carvature of its path in the magnetic field was one consistent with a possitive charged particle. He named this new particle a positron. Later, in the 1950’s, physicists at the Lawrence Radiation Lab used the Beratron accelerator to produce the anti-proton. Upon examination of this particle they found that it had the same mass and spin as a proton, but with negative charge and opposite magnetic moment. The process they used to create this particle with first to accelerate a proton to a very high speed, and then smash it into a target. This collision produces an antiproton and three protons, or in other words a proton antiproton pair and the two original protons. This seems to suggest that for each antiproton produced, there is one proton. This would sugget whole other worlds made of antimatter. However, this is a whole other debate.

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