I don't think that is the case. The kinetic energy of these super-energetic particles is often compared to a tennis ball. But that energy isn't released at once, so even if it would interact with yourself, that interaction creates a particle shower that takes most of the energy with it. I don't think we can feel one of our atoms getting violently ripped apart.
indeed, but note that c^2 is just a factor to convert between units here and is completely arbitrary (or rather, c is so high because our units are human scale)
indeed, in the most natural systems of units in this area, we set c = 1 as to simplify the equations
It was on the radio here (I live on its route)- the ‚receiving’ physicist said it would be way less than what we catch anyway from daily cosmic radiation.
I wonder what would happen if you had a solid piece of antimatter, say a gram of anti-iron... and just set it down. Would it really annihaliate immediately on contact with air, a lab table, or anything... or would the normal forces that keep us from falling through things still be in effect?
Either nothing would happen, or like molten salt in water, the joule currents would be instant and drive it all to go boom in a big way. I wonder which.
The comic Yoko Tsuno: The time spiral from 1981 (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Spirale_du_temps) is about a time traveler, who arrives from the future to prevent the creation/invention of antimatter. This is important, because in a future world war an antimatter bomb destroyed the earth.
The fact that no time traveler is mentioned in the article is probably a good sign for our future.
From a layman's point of view antimatter seems like an ideal spacecraft fuel. It's as energy dense as E = mc^2 allows, and if you have infrastructure to make it, the only input you need to produce it is electricity.
Being able to transport it seems like an important piece of that puzzle.
Production and storage would need to be scaled by many orders of magnitude, but that's merely an engineering problem...right?
I am curious about how much energy needs to be expanded to contain the anti-matter. Say it the matter/anti-matter is to be used for propulsion/energy generation can we reach a threshold were we are actually energy positive
How could we make enough antimatter to do something useful? Would we need to go hang out near the sun or deorbit Jupiter's moons with superconducting coils to get enough energy?
Imagine the poor post-doc in the back of the truck, no seatbelt, watching and noting anything going on, while the driver is doing donuts in a parking lot to really stress-test the magnetic containment.
Every time I read one of these, I am amazed by how much stuff superconductivity allows, and how limited we are because it needs ultra low temperatures.
Imagine your own, household matter/antimatter reaction chamber. I can hardly wait for antimatter to be transported through pipes underground along side water mains, natural gas pipes, and sewer connections.
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Gemini says a firecracker releases 150 J, so yeah not a lot.
The injury resembled nothing like being hit by tennis balls.
> He reportedly saw a flash "brighter than a thousand suns" but did not feel any pain.
He’s still alive today, age 83.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoli_Bugorski
> c^2 is a big number.
Famous tweet about conversations with God.
[1] - https://x.com/WraithLaFrentz/status/1981404849305686219
indeed, in the most natural systems of units in this area, we set c = 1 as to simplify the equations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_units
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometrized_unit_system
For a tiny number, that is still insanely high...
Either nothing would happen, or like molten salt in water, the joule currents would be instant and drive it all to go boom in a big way. I wonder which.
The fact that no time traveler is mentioned in the article is probably a good sign for our future.
Being able to transport it seems like an important piece of that puzzle.
Production and storage would need to be scaled by many orders of magnitude, but that's merely an engineering problem...right?
Mirror: https://archive.ph/JkeMp
Imagine the estate of this in 10 years with all the tech advancements, and all the applications it could have.
https://www.youtube.com/@pbsspacetime/search?query=antimatte...