The explosive aspect of antimatter is also often explored, usually in the form of [[EarthShatteringKaboom planet-destroying weapons]].[[hottip:*:Just don't expect the writers to realize [[TheAirNotThere the air is matter.]] Alternatively, controlled matter/anti-matter reactions could be used as a source of power: given that it does not naturally occur in useful quantities, it would be something like an ultimate battery - with massed solar or nuclear power producing the energy needed to synthesize large quantities of antimatter for use as starship fuel, weapons, or any application needing very high energy/power density.

Don't hold your breath waiting for such marvelous feats of technology, however: antimatter is currently the most expensive stuff on Earth, priced at about $62.5 trillion a gram[[hottip:*:For the sake of perspective, that amount of money represents just short of the total annual economic output of the ''entire world'']]. Not that a gram of antimatter was ever produced -- in fact, so far we don't know how to effectively store it. Put it in any regular container and it would annihilate against its walls. No good. Electromagnetic traps for have been devised, but those can only store a billion antiprotons or so. That's one millionth of a billionth of a gram. Ish. More than this would be difficult because all these antiprotons have negative charge, and hate being close to each other. Alternatively, we could store antihydrogen atoms which are electrically neutral, but that also makes those electromagnetic traps much more difficult to use. Still, scientists have been able to store 309 antihydrogen atoms for more than 1000 seconds. Now all we need to do is store one trillion billion (ish) times more hydrogen. No small feat -- but ScienceMarchesOn.

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Don't hold your breath waiting for such marvelous feats of technology, however: antimatter is currently the most expensive stuff on Earth, priced at about $62.5 trillion a gram[[hottip:*:For the sake of perspective, that amount of money represents just short of the total annual economic output of the ''entire world'']]. Not that a gram of antimatter was ever produced -- in fact, so far we don't know how to effectively store it. Put it in any regular container and it would annihilate against its walls. No good. Powerful electromagnetic traps for have been devised, but those can only store a billion antiprotons or so. That's one millionth of a billionth of a gram. Ish. More than this would be difficult because all these antiprotons have negative charge, and hate being close to each other. Alternatively, we could store antihydrogen atoms which are electrically neutral, but that also makes those electromagnetic traps much more difficult to use. Still, scientists have been able to store 309 antihydrogen atoms for more than 1000 seconds. Now all we need to do is store one trillion billion (ish) times more hydrogen. No small feat -- but ScienceMarchesOn.

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8th Apr '13 11:40:36 AM whitesphere

Send whitesphere a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

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27th Mar '13 11:26:09 AM StarSword

Send StarSword a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

forgot something

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