dimensions

[Upsilon]

Ok, when the big bang occured. There were two types of matter created (so I believe). When you collide particles together you get two equals parts of matter, and antimatter. This is how we know that two types are created. These experiments are done @ CERN with a particle accelerator. The problem with the big bang is that where did all the antimatter go. Maybe it's there but we can't see it. If it's there and we could see it would it mean that we could then enter into other dimensions???...

[jinydu]

In high school, you learn that antimatter is simply matter with opposite electric charge; and that the collision of matter with antimatter causes annihalates both. The current consensus is that the Big Bang produced slightly more matter than antimatter, most of the matter/antimatter was eliminated as the matter particles collided with the antimatter particles, and the small percentage of matter that did survive went on to make up the current Universe.

In short then, most of the antimatter has been destroyed. Although some natural processes do create new antimatter (ex. nuclear fusion creates positrons), it doesn't last long since it soon collides with matter.

[Upsilon]

I see what you mean. I agree with the your big bang answer. But What about us creating antimatter. If we can create enough, we're talkin like only a few grams, would we be able to harness it's anihilation energy. Since all you need is matter to feed it. Then could it fuel us or something to ultra high speeds? There is something that may be able to do this it's the LHC (Large Hadron Collider).
source: http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/Conten ... HC-en.html

[Chaos]

If you were going to create antimatter, it would be extremely difficult to stop it from colliding with matter. It'd have to be created in a perfect vacuum, with something holding it in place. I agree about harnessing its energy, though we're probably a long way from doing that.

[jinydu]

We already create antimatter on a day-to-day basis in our most powerful particle accelerators. The problem is, the quantity of antimatter is very, very small, far too small to be a feasible source of energy.

[Chaos]

Yes...but if we ever did produce enough antimatter to be able to harness the energy, I wonder what kind of things we could achieve...

[Upsilon]

you can store antimatter. It's done with vaccums, bending magnets, and focusing magnets. "Magnetic fields can change the direction and size of the beam, but not its energy. To do this you need an electric field: this is provided by radio-frequency cavities that produce high voltages in synchronicity with the rotation of particles around the ring."source: http://livefromcern.web.cern.ch/livefro ... ory02.html

I can see so many possibilites with this fantasy like material. What else could you see this advancing. Mass into prue energy.

[jinydu]

Again, the problem is generating enough antiprotons. As of now, the energy (and money) required to create them is far greater than the energy generated when they are annihalated via regular matter.

Just to give you an idea of today's technology, here is the current status of the Tevatron, the highest-energy particle accelerator operational today (although it will hopefully be superseded in a few years by the Large Hadron Collider):

http://www-bd.fnal.gov/notifyservlet/www

At the moment I'm typing this, there are about 821 billion antiprotons, and each one carries about 979 GeV of kinetic energy.