Star Trek?

Question

how did antimatter figure into Star Trek? Would it really work? If you aren't a Trekkie you may have to find an old episode - they're on all the time!

Answer 1

In Star Trek antimatter was used to power the ship. Antimatter engines are certainly possible. You can use the antimatter/matter reaction to power and propel a spaceship. (although not one that goes faster than light like in Star Trek) Although antimatter engines would be extremely efficient, they do have some setbacks. Firstly, antimatter is really tough to produce in massive quantities. It would take more energy to create the antimatter than you would get back from the annihilation reaction. So you would probably have to find a source of antimatter in nature...something like an antimatter asteroid. Also, antimatter explodes whenever it comes into contact with normal matter so you would have to keep the antimatter in a plasma state and contain it by using magnetic fields. Thats why in Star Trek the ship explodes whenever they lose power to their antimatter containment "force field". But assuming that you could get some large amounts of antimatter and safely contain it, then yes you could have an antimatter engine.

Answer 2

Antimatter is mixed with matter to generate the energy needed for the warp coils to warp space (needed for warp speed). The two are combined within a dilithium crystal matrix in order to make the controlled energy stream required for this, otherwise the reaction would blow the ship up like "the last supernova to go off in these parts" because of the energy entailed. One ounce of antimatter (in Trek universe) is sufficient to blow most of the atmosphere off a planet.

IRL, an ounce would just plaster a city. Antimatter is actually the perfect rocket fuel for interstellar travel, but only in a conventional reaction engine sense (like Star Trek impulse engines). You could not exceed light speed. Indeed, in order to achieve half light speed, much of the ship's mass would have to be antimatter and an equal amount reaction matter.

Follow up... Yes indeed, Nic, one billionth of a gram can vaporized a person. But, the only way you could do that to eveyone in the world with an ounce is to sneak it into everone's breakfast cereal before it reacts :-) That's not exactly what I meant. Let's do the math:

m = 1 oz = 0.028 kg
c=2.8 X 10^8 m/s
E=mc^2 = 2.2 X 10^15 J
Times two for the regular matter also converted gives
2E=4.4 X 10^15 J

One megaton is 4.18 10^15 J, corresponding to about ounce of antimatter. A megaton is generally considered adequate to "plaster a city".

Answer 3

Antimatter extends the concept of the antiparticle to matter, whereby antimatter is composed of antiparticles in the same way that normal matter is composed of particles. For example an antielectron (positron) and an antiproton could form an antihydrogen atom in the same way that an electron and a proton form a normal matter hydrogen atom. Furthermore, mixing of matter and antimatter would lead to the annihilation of both in the same way that mixing of antiparticles and particles does, thus giving rise to high-energy photons (gamma rays) or other particle–antiparticle pairs. The particles resulting from matter-antimatter annihilation are endowed with energy equal to the difference between the rest mass of the products of the annihilation and the rest mass of the original matter-antimatter pair, which is often quite large.

Antimatter is not found naturally on Earth, except very briefly in 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 greatest unsolved problems in physics. Possible processes by which it came about are explored in more detail under baryogenesis.

Answer 4

In star trek, antimatter was used to power the warp engines by combining it with matter to create an explosion which would, after being refracted through the dilithium crystal matrix would power the warp core.
It is not practival for non Star Trek worlds however, because the reaction wouldn't be powerful enough to power a space ship for very long, so you would have to carry alot of antimatter with you. oh and antimatter is extremely unstable due to the fact that everything in the known universe is matter

Answer 5

I would just like to point out to Dr. R that one ounce of antimatter would do more than plaster a city.
One BILLIONTH of a gram of antimatter will vaporize a person. So only a few grams would be needed to take out the earth. One ounce would be enough to vaporize the world population 4.5 times over.