matter and anti matter

[USS Triumphant]

Scary thought that I had about a decade ago:

Suppose they figure out a way to make anti-deuterium relatively cheaply.

Now, suppose some jackass figures out a way to make a fusion bomb that uses anti-deuterium instead of the standard hydrogen.



Can someone please tell me why this isn't feasible?

 

[Vance]

Can someone please tell me why this isn't feasible?

Reliability of storage. Where are you going to STORE that anti-matter for your bomb? Magnetic storage is the most viable solution, but that requires a lot of power to set up... and it isn't exactly a portable concept. It's not untenable, but it is untenable for a 'rogue nation' to do... look at the issues they're having spending trillions making A-bombs that were effectively obsolete by 1946...

Though, you do realize, you just described a photon torpedo, anyway.

 

[USS Triumphant]

<snip> it is untenable for a 'rogue nation' to do <snip>

Though, you do realize, you just described a photon torpedo, anyway.

I'm not worried about a rogue nation building such a thing in a deliverable weapons system. I'm worried about such an experiment at the likes of Lawrence Livermore. It might only take ONE such experiment to generate the Worst Day Evar.

And no, I didn't realize that was a photorp. To be honest - and it kind of surprises me, too - I've never given that much thought to what the basic destructive force was in those. I've discussed "transphasic" torpedoes and what sort of variation such a thing might provide for the delivery of that force, but still without giving the force itself much thought. Hrmph.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Scary thought that I had about a decade ago:

Suppose they figure out a way to make anti-deuterium relatively cheaply.

Now, suppose some jackass figures out a way to make a fusion bomb that uses anti-deuterium instead of the standard hydrogen.



Can someone please tell me why this isn't feasible?

Theoretically, it IS feasible. A magnetic bottle to keep the material away from the container walls is feasible on a small enough scale (say, a few milligrams of antideuterium ions) and detonation would simply involve turning the containment field OFF.

The real thing that makes it infeasible is that it is EXTREMELY difficult to make antimatter and just about impossible to make it in appreciable quantities. Producing it on the cheap is going to be a much greater technical challenge than building a bomb.

 

[Ronald Held]

Why are you worried? They use more energy in creating the antimatter, then you get back from its annihilation.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Why are you worried? They use more energy in creating the antimatter, then you get back from its annihilation.

Exactly....

When we say that they've "apparently" created a minute amount of anti-hydrogen, that's what we mean... a quantity countable, not in terms of kilograms, or micrograms, or even "moles," but in terms of ATOMS.

If someone comes up with an energy-efficient mass-production scheme for antimatter... THEN you'll want to start worrying. 'Til then... not so much.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Theoretically, it IS feasible. A magnetic bottle to keep the material away from the container walls is feasible on a small enough scale (say, a few milligrams of antideuterium ions) and detonation would simply involve turning the containment field OFF.

That is a simple anti-matter bomb, very nasty, but not what I was talking about. That is beyond our current ability to fabricate, but no great shakes to see how it would work.

What I'm referring to is a bomb that utilizes radiation implosion and fission ignition to cause a fusion explosion, only utilizing anti-deuterium instead of regular hydrogen as fuel for the fusion reaction.

I'm not certain what the entire effect of gamma, anti-gamma, neutron, and anti-neutron emissions, not to mention almost 600 different other varieties of matter and antimatter radiation, would be. But it seems like it would be a very BAD thing.

If someone comes up with an energy-efficient mass-production scheme for antimatter... THEN you'll want to start worrying. 'Til then... not so much.

Is it better to worry about someone breaking into your house before, or after, someone decides to actually do it?

 

[Crazy Eddie]

What I'm referring to is a bomb that utilizes radiation implosion and fission ignition to cause a fusion explosion, only utilizing anti-deuterium instead of regular hydrogen as fuel for the fusion reaction.

Then I'm not sure what you're asking here, because "fusing" anti-deuterium would be kind of self-defeating. Remember, the only reason they use a fission-based primary is because it takes ALOT of energy to trigger the fusion reaction, but this is okay because the fusion reaction produces alot more energy than the fission reaction alone could produce. If you have antimatter anyway, you could use it to produce a smaller fusion bomb by using the antimatter core as a primary, but that would be a bit of an overkill solution since fission devices are ALOT easier to manufacture.

As to the overall question, the device you describe would be... well, weird, but I don't think it would make a very effective bomb.

If someone comes up with an energy-efficient mass-production scheme for antimatter... THEN you'll want to start worrying. 'Til then... not so much.

Is it better to worry about someone breaking into your house before, or after, someone decides to actually do it?

Maybe you should rephrase that... is it better to worry about someone breaking into your house before or after you actually own a house?

 

[Chaos Descending]

@ USS Triumphant: There's no such thing as anti-gamma. Photons are their own antiparticle.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Maybe you should rephrase that... is it better to worry about someone breaking into your house before or after you actually own a house?

That depends. Are you planning to own one? If so, then before.

And you just know that if such a weapon is feasible, some nutjob plans to own one.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Maybe you should rephrase that... is it better to worry about someone breaking into your house before or after you actually own a house?

That depends. Are you planning to own one? If so, then before.

No, because I don't have one NOW, and worrying about a crime that can't happen NOW is a bit silly. Actually, worrying in general is a bit silly and should only be a prelude to preparation, which isn't possible when you don't have a HOUSE.

And you just know that if such a weapon is feasible, some nutjob plans to own one.

Just like I know that if I ever plan to own a helicopter, some nutjob somewhere plans to use it to drop napalm on schoolkids in Humboldt Park. It's not something I worry about, though, because I doubt I will ever own a helicopter any time soon, and therefore I don't see a need to begin looking into security measures that would prevent said lunatic from stealing it and equipping it with a napalm delivery system.

Same with anti-matter. Current science doesn't have a means to create antimatter cheaply OR in large quantities, and there is no indication that it ever will. If someone ever develops a technique that might change this, THEN we need to start worrying about it. Otherwise, it's the same with my future helicopter: I'll probably never own one, so it's just a hypothetical at this point.

 

[Ronald Held]

Someone is worried about antimatter catalyzed fusion, now?

 

[USS Triumphant]

Someone is worried about antimatter catalyzed fusion, now?

For quite a while, now, actually.

One thing that has been consistent in human history is that if we invent a weapon, we will use it, at least once. Until relatively recently - the last hundred years or so - that was bad but not catastrophic. The species would survive.

In that last hundred, though, we've entered an era where that is no longer true. Arsenals of nukes, planetbuster fusion weapons, antimatter weapons, antimatter/fusion weapons, nano-robotics, bioweapons intended to target specific genetics (but will probably evolve to effect targets beyond their intended targets), and so on. And if the fact that they will no longer be extinction-level events to see their use has changed, the idea that just because we have them means they have to be used needs to change to, if we're to avoid dying out.

Unfortunately, I have very little faith that that will change. So the other possible survival alternative is to get as far ahead of the game as possible. If that means I'm worrying about antimatter catalyzed fusion, and trying to get others thinking about it, too, 10, 20, 50, or even 100 years before it could be a problem, then so be it.

My biggest short term priority is that we get all of our eggs out of one basket, and get out into space. But our governments don't seem inclined to make that a priority.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

^ For one thing, the entire notion of "Just because you have it means you have to use it" has been outdated for at least the last fifty years.

Secondly, any weapon of mass destruction is as good as another, so dreaming up new ones to "be prepared" is kind of pointless; they'd all be regulated under the IAEA or the U.N.. Rogue states will have their own manias and obsessions, but lunatic leaders don't usually have their shit together well enough to get these kinds of weapons. Lone wolf terrorists could do plenty of damage with such a device, but GETTING one presents a huge problem in the first place, and anyway a lone gunman can't trigger an extinction level event. Competing superpowers don't nuke each other because the whole point of their having nukes is to keep their enemies from nuking THEM.

So it's not a matter of survival of the species. It's a matter of global security, to be sure, but barring a major political clusterfuck and a worldwide breakdown of common sense, self-destruction is highly unlikely, even by accident.

Unless, of course, we start colonizing space and then the space colonists decide to bump us off. Maybe those dirty Zeeks will drop a colony on us?

 

[USS Triumphant]

barring a major political clusterfuck and a worldwide breakdown of common sense

You bar too much, here. I'll spare you the huge list of major political clusterfucks, but as for worldwide breakdowns of common sense, I'll just say this: Disco.

And I'm not just "dreaming up" problems. I'm not saying we should all panic due to an uprising of angry, animate mashed potatoes, or anything like that. But it is never too early to think about prevention and response to problems that seem to have a statistically significant probability. And the part of the American government that is responsible for defending us seems to agree - which is why they have large numbers of folders standing by for the president to deal with any number of even fairly-unlikely-seeming scenarios.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

barring a major political clusterfuck and a worldwide breakdown of common sense

You bar too much, here. I'll spare you the huge list of major political clusterfucks, but as for worldwide breakdowns of common sense, I'll just say this: Disco.

Disco was painful, sure, but only a few of us died because of it.

I'm talking about a state of global anarchy where the militaries of various countries become completely unglued and generals/corporations/companies/commanders strike out for their own little quest for glory with no regard for the consequences of their actions. The complete breakdown of world order in a way that makes rational decision-making either extremely difficult or extremely rare.

And I'm not just "dreaming up" problems.

In this case, you definately are. Antimatter-catalyzed fusion is about as likely as an artificial black hole or a destructive nanorobot swarm. It'd be good material for the next James Bond movie, but none of these things are even REMOTE possibilities with today's technology.

And the part of the American government that is responsible for defending us seems to agree - which is why they have large numbers of folders standing by for the president to deal with any number of even fairly-unlikely-seeming scenarios.

Yeah, because planning for unlikely scenarios is the one thing FEMA is particularly good at.

 

[Ronald Held]

It is the case in this universe that it easier to make a fission/fusion/antimatter bomb, then a stable fission/fusion reactor or antimatter propulsion system.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Yeah, because planning for unlikely scenarios is the one thing FEMA is particularly good at.

I wasn't referring to FEMA.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Yeah, because planning for unlikely scenarios is the one thing FEMA is particularly good at.

I wasn't referring to FEMA.

Let me paint this discussion in another light...

Suppose that we had no real knowledge or ability to manufacture explosives. And someone figured out how to manufacture, at the cost of a few million dollars, how to make a tiny amount of nitroglycerin. With that amount of nitroglycerin being sufficient, if detonated, to MAYBE sever a single human hair, no more.

Would that make nitroglycerin a massive threat to the world? I mean, if you somehow managed to produce a few million metric tons of the stuff, just imagine the boom!

That's sort of what we're talking about here. We are, as a species, incapable of producing enough antimatter to pose a thread to ANYTHING. Yes, the yield from the reaction of a single anti-hydrogen nucleus... with a "real" hydrogen nucleus wouldn't even be enough to sever that one human hair.

Yeah, give us a kilogram of anti-hydrogen and you've got one big freakin' bomb. But do you have any idea how many hydrogen atoms would be required to make up a kilogram of the stuff?

Any of you current-student-types have your handy-dandy periodic table with you? (I'm too lazy at the moment to go look up the atomic weight of Hydrogen... so sue me!)

Now... however... assume you have half that much hydrogen and half that much anti-hydrogen... or one kilogram of total reactant mass. And assume that, somehow, you were able to contain it to ensure that you got 100% reaction (instead of some of it being thrown into space or otherwise "lost" from the standpoint of the reaction yield).

Then, you use the "simplified form" equation we all know... "E=mc^2."

Well, we know mass, and mass is in kilograms. The speed of light, in meters-per-second, is 299,792,458 m/sec. So, if you react (perfectly) one kilogram of reactant, converting entirely into energy, you get...

299,792,458 ^2 joules of energy, or

89,875,517,873,681,764 joules.

Now, how much is a joule?

You might want to start here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joule

But here's the relevant bit (taken from there)...

One joule in everyday life is approximately:

• the energy required to lift a small apple one meter straight up.
• the energy released when that same apple falls one meter to the ground.
• the energy released as heat by a quiet person, every hundredth of a second.
• the energy required to heat one gram of dry, cool air by 1 degree Celcius.
• one hundredth of the energy a person can receive by drinking a drop of beer.
• the kinetic energy of an adult human moving a distance of about a handspan every second.

So, that explains quite a bit, I hope. There's a lot of energy which, in theory, can be received from total matter-to-energy annihilation. But in order for this to be practical, you need more than a few atoms of reactant.

Maybe the same "periodic table guy" can run the same equation using the real atomic mass of a pair of hydrogen (or rather, a hydrogen and an anti-hydrogen) atoms. How much does a single "annihilation event" produce?

How many hydrogen atoms do you need to annihilate to equal the amount of energy you get from drinking a beer?

 

[USS Triumphant]

Suppose that we had no real knowledge or ability to manufacture explosives. And someone figured out how to manufacture, at the cost of a few million dollars, how to make a tiny amount of nitroglycerin. With that amount of nitroglycerin being sufficient, if detonated, to MAYBE sever a single human hair, no more.

Would that make nitroglycerin a massive thread to the world? I mean, if you somehow managed to produce a few million metric tons of the stuff, just imagine the boom!

I have faith in the progress of science and technology. We will be able to produce anti-matter relatively cheaply one day, just like we keep finding ways to produce cheaper aluminum, or faster CPUs, or whatever else we really want.

I'm very optimistic in my pessimism.

Your use of nitroglycerin as an example is only too perfect. Nitroglycerin was extremely hard to work with and very expensive to begin with - heck, the guy who invented it ultimately got blown up by it. But as time has gone by, we have found safer and more efficient ways to produce it and transport it, and multiple needs for it (like medical use), which just motivates people to make it more safely, efficiently, and cheaply still.

And even though its creator immediately warned of the dangers, it was put to work in military applications almost immediately - including, eventually, its use in early fission bombs as an ignition explosive.

We're at that "creator's warning" point right now with antimatter. If Sobrero had created a tiny quantity of nitroglycerin in his lab and someone had immediately started calling for the constuction of bomb shelters, people would have looked at them like they were mad. Much like some of you are looking at me, now.....

It is NEVER too early to start thinking about these things.