Antimatter Trapped for 16 Minutes

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Researchers have successfully trapped antimatter for 100 seconds. I'm not sure what that means for science but it makes for an awesome party trick. ;) Thanks to Eulogy for the link.

The team has now managed to capture 112 antiatoms in this new trap for times ranging from one-fifth of a second to 1,000 seconds, or 16 minutes and 40 seconds. (To date, since the beginning of the project, Fajans and his colleagues have trapped 309 antihydrogen atoms in various traps.)
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That's crazy. That means they can basically hold it forever, just refining their process.

I think the last milestone was a few milliseconds?
 
Next step? Let's create an energy conversion device that can turn energy directly into electricity so we can move past this silly heat cycle fad.

After that? Let's throw in a cookie :).
 
I don't know much about this subject... but I do know that matter/anti-matter collision is bad.
I would guess there are obvious weapon implications with being able to store anti-matter effectively for long periods of time.
 
distortion69 said:
I don't know much about this subject... but I do know that matter/anti-matter collision is bad.
I would guess there are obvious weapon implications with being able to store anti-matter effectively for long periods of time.
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Forget weapon applications, think about ridiculous energy generation.
 
We are going to hear this one day: "Antimatter containment was lost, and the resultant contact between antimatter and the normal matter of the ship destroyed the vessel."
 
Achron said:
Next step? Let's create an energy conversion device that can turn energy directly into electricity so we can move past this silly heat cycle fad.

After that? Let's throw in a cookie :).
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I have studied this for years.

I think it is pathetic that even man's most advanced methods of power generation essentially involve boiling water.

If we could solve this equation, imagine the possibilities.

Shit, I could make a fucking Iron man Suit..
 
geordi_la_forge-400x305.jpg


Space! Gonna Goto Space! Space! Space! Love Space! Hey, Hey, Lady, Space!
 
night_2004 said:
With current technology I'm sure it costs more energy to get anti-matter than it generates in an annihilation event.
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Oh sure, but if it takes at least $4500/kg to get something into orbit (and usually a LOT higher!), if you can get an equal amount of fuel into orbit with dramatically lower weight, then this becomes an interesting fuel system.

Granted, all sorts of details must be worked out, but at least with current/near-future tech the amount, and mass of fuel is going to be our limitation in exploration of the solar system.
 
Wait, so the anti-matter rounds in some games are real life soon!? :eek:

All joking aside, this is pretty cool. This could spawn some cool things in the future if they are able to get it under control.
 
WinSomeLoseNone said:
I have studied this for years.

I think it is pathetic that even man's most advanced methods of power generation essentially involve boiling water.

If we could solve this equation, imagine the possibilities.

Shit, I could make a fucking Iron man Suit..
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Oh I completely agree. Do you know what's preposterous? The NIF at L3 is planning to use...wait for it...a steam turbine after their fusion process. FUSION! I would think at this point people would understand the limitations of Carnot.
 
Achron said:
Oh I completely agree. Do you know what's preposterous? The NIF at L3 is planning to use...wait for it...a steam turbine after their fusion process. FUSION! I would think at this point people would understand the limitations of Carnot.
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I Told them, Bro use more beta-decay to directly generate electricity from nuclear reactors and they were like, nah man, we're alpha, we don't go for that shit.

*continues to boil water
 
Achron said:
Next step? Let's create an energy conversion device that can turn energy directly into electricity so we can move past this silly heat cycle fad.

After that? Let's throw in a cookie :).
Click to expand...

Already done. It's called a fuel cell.

Achron said:
Forget weapon applications, think about ridiculous energy generation.
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Nope. You can't mine anti-matter. It takes much more energy to make that antimatter then is released when it collides with matter.
 
night_2004 said:
With current technology I'm sure it costs more energy to get anti-matter than it generates in an annihilation event.
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Knowing physics the way I do, I don't think that's an issue with current technology, and that it will always be that way :)
 
I asked a physicist from school about the biggest benefit from this sort of thing was this:

Basically all the matter in the current universe, hydrogen, carbon etc., there theoretically exists the same exact amount of their in another universe. So, if we're able to tap into this energy, we pretty much have an unlimited resource available to us, where we can basically create other forms of matter out of thin air.

Now, if all of this is potentially true, science fiction becomes more reality in the sense that travelling great distances in space become more possible because this unlimited energy source gives man the capability to create faster propulsion systems without having to use nuclear energy which is not only dangerous but unstable (then again we're talking about a substance which before a few days ago would annihilate itself in microsecond). But it would also be possible for force fields and stuff, and at this point he got all scientific on my ass and lost me from there. But the potential is huge basically
 
Pretty neat stuff for sure. It's going to be very neat to see what spins off of this, and what we can learn from it in the near future.
 
We may soon see if Einstein is right about the speed of light... just kidding.

NASA rates "warp technology" at the "speculation" stage - but I think I've seen a drawing of a "warp drive" somewhere on NASA's site. It looks strangely like what you'd find in Star Trek: TNG.

Good times.
 
What I'd like to see is a containment mechanism good enough to keep enough antimatter stored so we can build full blown anti-molecules. Then we can test first-hand weather or not antimatter behaves similarly to the same structures composed of normal matter.

EvilWays said:
ncc1701.jpg


This.
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Huh, funny... that scene is from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, but the ships are never actually positioned that way in the movie. Posed production art?
 
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