|
Antimatter
History
In
1898,
Arthur Schuster, British physicist,
believed that there were entire stellar systems
of antimatter that were indistinguishable from our solar system and introduced
the names "antimatter" and "anti-atoms". He suggested that matter and antimatter would annihilate each other to
produce an enormous quantity of energy along with anticipating the concepts of special relativity and quantum
physics.
-
In 1905, Albert Einstein unveiled his
special
relativity theory explaining the relationship between space & time, and energy & mass in his famous equation, E=mc2.
Hermann
Minkowski realized space and time were coupled together by a four-dimensional.
In 1919,
Theodor
Kaluza, unified Maxwell's Electromagnetism and Einstein's
Theory of General Relativity and Gravity by adding the fifth dimension. Max
Planck proposed that light was composed of little packets called
"quantum” to explain how light was not just a wave or just a
particle, but a combination of both. In the 1920s, Erwin Schrödinger and Werner Heisenberg
apply the concept to the atoms and invented
quantum
theory of physics for slow moving particles.
- In 1928,
Paul
Dirac developed an equation for combining quantum theory and special
relativity. The solution contained an
electron with positive energy, and a positive electron (positron)
with negative energy. In 1930, Carl Anderson was studying showers of
cosmic particles and discovered the positron, which confirming Dirac’s
Theory. Dirac's equation won him a Nobel Prize in 1933. Paul Dirac theorized for every particle there exists a
corresponding antiparticle, which exactly matches the particle but with
opposite charge. After the discovery of the positron, anti-proton and
anti-neutron, Dirac’s Theory of Symmetry speculated on the existence of anti-planets,
and anti-stars.
In 1948,
Hermann Bondi, Thomas Gold, and
Fred Hoyle
proposed the Steady State
Universe Model, which assumed the universe was composed of equal qualities of
matter and antimatter. The Steady State Universe was supported by the
discovery of anti-protons and anti-neutrons in 1955 and
1956. Fred Hoyle coined the name
"Big Bang Universe." With the
discovery of
microwave
background radiation in 1965, the scientific
community split into the scientific Plasma Universe model and the religious Big Bang Universe Model:
- In 1966,
Hannes
Alfven, Father of Modern Plasma Science, developed Plasma Universe Model
or scientific model
by incorporate the observed motions into the Steady State Model. Alfven
received the Nobel Prize for his contributions to basic plasma physics and
space plasmas.
Anthony
Peratt generated computer models that simulated the known galaxies
in the universe. Two black holes are located in the center of galaxies. One black hole is composed
of matter and the other is antimatter. As the black holes osculate, they
eject matter
and antimatter in opposite directions into space forming spiral arms of matter and antimatter
stars. In our galaxy, the sun is one of the billions of stars
that are composed of matter and there are a similar number of antimatter stars.
- The
Big
Bang Model or religious model was conceived in by
Georges LeMaitre, Catholic Priest and astrophysicist and assumes that most
of the antimatter was annihilated billions of years ago in a
Big Bang. In 1995, astronomers were astounded to observe fountains of
antimatter extending thousands of light-years from the center of the Milky
Way Galaxy and other galaxies. Today, most astronomers believe that
Big Bang Model has serious flaws and have written papers on the dark matter,
which is ionized particles or plasma within galaxies. By defining
dark matter as a plasma (fourth state of matter), they can move gracefully from the Big Bang to the Plasma Universe Model. However,
this paradigm represents a quantum leap for many scientists.
For the last fifty years, physicists have built
accelerators to discover new elementary particles. In 1967, Steven Weinberg theorized that weak forces
and electromagnetic were the same at high energy levels, which was
confirmed by physicists at
CERN and
Fermilab
in 1973. Steven Weinberg, Sheldon Glashow, and Abdus Salam, were awarded the
Nobel Prize in 1979.
- In 1982 and 1984, UA1 and UA2 collaborations at
CERN discovered W and Z bosons. Carlo
Rubbia and Simon Van der Meer received a Nobel Prize for their
contributions for making, storing and colliding antimatter and discovering
the W and Z bosons. Today, the
Standard
Model unifies the weak and electromagnetic theories into electro-weak
theory.
- Scientists have confirmed matter-antimatter symmetry between the
elementary particles.
Physicists have identified the elementary
building blocks (six quarks, six leptons, six anti-quarks and six anti-leptons) along with their force carriers.
Fermilab
physicists are looking for the Higgs boson that gives particles mass; and
CERN
scientists will be using the
Large
Hadrons Collider to look for the Higgs boson at high energies.
In April 2002, Norm Hansen
announced
the discovery that comets are composed of antimatter to the
joint
meeting of American
Physical Society and
American
Astronomical Society. When antimatter enters our solar system, it is called
comets. The comet's plasma coma and tails are created by the solar wind and
dust particles blasting antimatter fragments, dust and ions off the comet's
surface. On July 23, 2002, a
sungrazer comet
collided with the sun and released enough energy to supply the world's energy
needs for 10,000 years. Light and x-rays are produced from
matter-antimatter annihilation taking place on the comet's surface and in the
plasma coma and tails.
- The amount of antimatter in our solar system is a million times less than
scientists had estimated. Antimatter is mirror image of matter and
is also composed of elements. The updated
Periodic Table of Elements has 109 matter and 109
antimatter elements. Each of the antimatter element’s nuclear, physical, and
chemical properties have been defined to such an extent that people know
almost as much about antimatter as matter.
- After seventy-five years of research by thousands of
scientists and engineers, Dirac’s Theory of
Matter-Antimatter Symmetry exist for black holes, stars, planets, asteroids,
dust particles, elements, and elementary particles.
When matter and antimatter come together, energy is produce according to
Einstein's Theory, E = mc2. The technology
exist to safely acquire, store, process and use antimatter as a natural source of
energy.
On 4th of July 2005, NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft's
collision with 9P/Tempel 1 comet confirms that
comets
are natural sources of antimatter. Within 21st century,
antimatter energy will provide
power for people's homes and businesses and will bring every country into the 21st century without destroying our
environment. Billions of people will be traveling in spacecraft to space
stations orbiting earth in minutes, the moon in hours, colonies on the
planets in days, and with advanced technology, the stars in weeks. The Star Trek dream
will become
reality.
|