Essay, Research Paper: Antimatter

Everything that we have seen, touched, smelled and tasted is made up of

particles called neutrons, electrons, and protons, but we haven't seen, touched,

smelled, or tasted everything yet. This report will explain what Antimatter is, where

it comes from, and experiments about it. I have chosen Antimatter for my report for

two main reasons. The first reason was that I knew nothing about it, and the second

was that it sounded interesting. Now I have a greater knowledge, and interest, in

Antimatter.


In 1930 a miraculous theory was made by British Scientist Paul A. M. Dirac.

He theorized that all matter had an opposite called Antimatter. This Antimatter was

the same as matter only the electrical charges of the particles is reversed. Ever since

then, scientists have been creating Antimatter particles with high-energy particle

accelerators. They have produced positrons (opposite of electrons), antineutrons

(opposite of neutrons), and antiprotons (opposite of protons). In September 1995,

the first atoms of Antimatter were produced by Prof. Walter Oelert in CERN, a

particle accelerator lab in England. A total of nine atoms were produced,

traveled at the speed of light for 10 meters, and then annihilated with normal matter.

Each of these Antimatter atoms lasted for about forty billionths of a second. The

annihilation produced a signal that scientists are looking for to detect whether or not

there is Antimatter in our universe.


More than just signals are produced when matter and Antimatter annihilate

each other. A huge burst of energy one hundred times stronger than that of a

nuclear power source is released. This is by far the best way to produce energy,

but the energy it takes to create Antimatter is greater than the amount produced.

Another problem is that it costs One-Hundred-Billion dollars to create one

milligram of Antimatter. This is plenty for doing research, but to be commercially

workable the price would have to drop by about a factor of Ten-Thousand.


Scientists believe that the big bang was created by a large mass of matter, and

a large mass of Antimatter that annihilated each other. The reason that there is so

little matter in the universe is because there was more matter to start off with. After

the explosion, more matter remained than Antimatter. This theory is being tested at

CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics near Geneva. This experiment,

code-named NA48, was started around May 15, 1997 and should last for about

three years.


In the 1980's information was gathered for this experiment but it was

inconclusive. Now they are gathering information again with the use of high-tech

computers and a liquid krypton calorimeter. The calorimeter is used to detect

uncharged particles called pions. The amount of krypton required is a large part of

the worlds supply, and was provided by Russian colleagues.


There still are many unanswered questions about Antimatter. Such as, is there

an anti-gravity? And if so, would an anti-apple fall up? Would friction be the same

in an anti-world? Could annihilation be a possible space craft fuel? Scientists are

working day and night to figure out the answers to these questions and many more

at laboratories like CERN in Geneva. I hope that these questions will be answered

some day.



World Book Encyclopedia, 1 (A) 1997 "Antimatter" Chicago, Illinois World Book Inc.

http://www.lerc.nasa.gov/WWW/POA/html/warp/antistat.htm "Warp Drive, When?" Millis, Marc G.

http://lodestar.phys.unm.edu/nv1.htm "Antimatter"

http://hepweb.rl.ac.uk/ppuk/pr.NA48.html "Matter, Antimatter and the Krypton Factor"

http://www.CERN.ch/press/releases96/PR01.96EAntihydrogen.html "First Atoms of Antimatter Produced at CERN"