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Physicists drive antihydrogen breakthrough at CERN

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Re: Physicists drive antihydrogen breakthrough at CERN

#11

Post by octaane »

DennisP wrote: post #7
IsTom wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can electromagnetically trap enough antimatter to use it as fuel you could as well trap a miniature charged black hole that can be fed regular matter to produce power, which skips the whole inefficient part of making antimatter.

Depends. Do we know how to obtain a miniature black hole?

There have been several proposals. This paper proposes a feasable mechanism[1]:

-"a SBH could be artificially created by firing a huge number of gamma rays from a spherically converging laser. The idea is to pack so much energy into such a small space that a BH will form."

1. https://arxiv.org/abs/0908.1803

Re: Physicists drive antihydrogen breakthrough at CERN

#12

Post by fooker »

impossiblefork wrote: post #8
IsTom wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can electromagnetically trap enough antimatter to use it as fuel you could as well trap a miniature charged black hole that can be fed regular matter to produce power, which skips the whole inefficient part of making antimatter.

Miniature black holes would just evaporate. Antimatter wouldn't.

Not before efficiently converting a large amount of mass into usable energy.

Re: Physicists drive antihydrogen breakthrough at CERN

#13

Post by piannucci »

octaane wrote: post #11
DennisP wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends. Do we know how to obtain a miniature black hole?

There have been several proposals. This paper proposes a feasable mechanism[1]: -"a SBH could be artificially created by firing a huge number of gamma rays from a spherically converging laser. The idea is to pack so much energy into such a small space that a BH will form." 1. https://arxiv.org/abs/0908.1803

There’s a recent paper on the formation of such a “kugelblitz”; it’s argued to be unfeasible.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.02389

Re: Physicists drive antihydrogen breakthrough at CERN

#14

Post by GenerWork »

fooker wrote: post #12
impossiblefork wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Miniature black holes would just evaporate. Antimatter wouldn't.

Not before efficiently converting a large amount of mass into usable energy.

How could we harness this energy and make it usable?

Re: Physicists drive antihydrogen breakthrough at CERN

#15

Post by jjmarr »

fooker wrote: post #12
impossiblefork wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Miniature black holes would just evaporate. Antimatter wouldn't.

Not before efficiently converting a large amount of mass into usable energy.

But you want that to happen in space and to control the output of energy.

Otherwise you just have a bomb.

Re: Physicists drive antihydrogen breakthrough at CERN

#16

Post by teamonkey »

modeless wrote: post #3

This piece argues that antimatter could be feasible for space propulsion and we could start developing it now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46073414

For those who are time-rich and knowledge-poor:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=i6jMnz6nlkw

(Angela is genuinely a great science communicator and that video is time well spent if you are interested in this topic.)

Re: Physicists drive antihydrogen breakthrough at CERN

#17

Post by [deleted] »

impossiblefork wrote: post #8
IsTom wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can electromagnetically trap enough antimatter to use it as fuel you could as well trap a miniature charged black hole that can be fed regular matter to produce power, which skips the whole inefficient part of making antimatter.

Miniature black holes would just evaporate. Antimatter wouldn't.

[deleted]

Re: Physicists drive antihydrogen breakthrough at CERN

#18

Post by einpoklum »

GenerWork wrote: post #14
fooker wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not before efficiently converting a large amount of mass into usable energy.

How could we harness this energy and make it usable?

You could pen a carefully-worded a letter of demands and send it to some Billionaire? A bit on the risky side, but - hey, you only live once etc.

Re: Physicists drive antihydrogen breakthrough at CERN

#19

Post by einpoklum »

modeless wrote: post #3

This piece argues that antimatter could be feasible for space propulsion and we could start developing it now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46073414

What's the key point regarding how we would get a bajillion times more anti-matter than we can now generate, and without expending all the energy we now expend on getting it?

Re: Physicists drive antihydrogen breakthrough at CERN

#20

Post by galacticaactual »

IsTom wrote: post #6
modeless wrote: post #3

This piece argues that antimatter could be feasible for space propulsion and we could start developing it now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46073414

If you can electromagnetically trap enough antimatter to use it as fuel you could as well trap a miniature charged black hole that can be fed regular matter to produce power, which skips the whole inefficient part of making antimatter.

They made a movie about this. It didn’t end so well for the crew.
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