What is Antimatter and Why don't we use it for power and other stuff?

Answer 1

In particle physics, antimatter extends the concept of the antiparticle to matter, wherein if a particle and its antiparticle come into contact with each other, the two annihilate —that is, they may both be converted into other particles with equal energy in accordance with Einstein's equation E = mc2. This gives rise to high-energy photons (gamma rays) or other particle–antiparticle pairs. The resulting particles are endowed with an amount of kinetic energy equal to the difference between the rest mass of the products of the annihilation and the rest mass of the original particle-antiparticle pair, which is often quite large.

Antimatter is not found naturally on Earth, except very briefly and in vanishingly small quantities (as the result of radioactive decay or cosmic rays). This is because antimatter which comes to exist on Earth outside the confines of a suitably equipped physics laboratory would inevitably come into contact with the ordinary matter that Earth is made of, and be annihilated. Antiparticles and some stable antimatter (such as antihydrogen) can be made in minuscule amounts, but not in enough quantity to do more than test a few of its theoretical properties.

There is considerable speculation both in science and science fiction as to why the observable universe is apparently almost entirely matter, whether other places are almost entirely antimatter instead, and what might be possible if antimatter could be harnessed, but at this time the apparent asymmetry of matter and antimatter in the visible universe is one of the great unsolved problems in physics. Possible processes by which it came about are explored in more detail under baryogenesis.

Answer 2

Firstly, the amount of energy required to produce antimatter is far greater than the amount of energy that will be produced by getting matter and antimatter to annihilate.
This would make it of no use for general energy production. However, it would be no bar, theoretically, to its being used as an energy source for propulsion in space.

Secondly, having made it, where would you store it ? The instant that antimatter touched the walls of the containing vessel, there would be a big bang - no more vessel, no more antimatter. I suppose it could be stored in the form of a plasma suspended in a magnetic field - the same way that the Joint European Torus suspends a plasma while it attempts to heat it to 10 million °C in nuclear fusion experiments.
So could one take the plasma containing the antimatter onto one's spaceship ? I doubt it, because, with present-day technology, the equipment weighs several thousand tonnes. An idea for the future, perhaps. Watch this space !

Answer 3

Antimatter is just like regular matter, but with a reversed electrical charge and the disturbing tendency to annihilate regular matter in a huge flash of energy when they come in contact with one another.

Technically, matter/antimatter annihilation would be a great power source. Problem is, there is no antimatter to be found naturally. (Well, that's actually a good thing, unless you'd like the entire planet to vanish in a colossal explosion.) In order to produce antimatter for research purposes, it has to be created -- and that, thanks to the laws of thermodynamics, always takes more energy than would be released in the matter/antimatter reaction. So it would make a terrible power source.

Answer 4

You know that matter is composed of positive protons and negative electrons . I use these terms for the electric charges ;
Antimatter is composed of negative protons and positive electrons.

When anti matters collides with matter you have the phenomena of annihilation. After collision, their masses vanishes and are replaced by two photons with energies equals to the mass of the particles . This gives a lot of energy;

It Is difficult to use this energy for industrial purposes, Since we should prevent antimatter and matter to collide before we use them. Or this is at the present time impossible

Answer 5

Why don't we use it for power? Because we can't make or store enough to make it worthwhile. Over the last 50 years, CERN has created enough antimatter to power a 40W lightbulb for around 7 minutes.

Answer 6

antimatter has the opposite charge from normal matter (so proton is negative and electron positive). It's very very expensive and dangerous to make. Fusion is probably a more practical source.

Answer 7

antimatter is the inverse of matter and so if they touch correspondingly they anhilate. e.g. if an electron cam ein contact with a positron they cancel out releasing huge amounts of energy.
problem is its very hard to create antimatter

Answer 8

It is the direct opposite of matter & the two react violently with each other. Since any containment vessell would be made of matter there would be no way to do this.

Answer 9

Stop reading Dan Brown's novel, it's evil.

Answer 10

We of course CAN'T use anti-matter. We ourselves and all the perceptible things around us are made up of matter. When both meet, Blooop... nothing exists anymore!