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There was a short story about an antimatter alien who visited Earth. It shook hands with a human and both were annihilated.
by stephengillie 8y ago
There was a short story about an antimatter alien who visited Earth. It shook hands with a human and both were annihilated.
- Aardwolf 8y agoWouldn't it already be annihilated by air particles though :)
- stephengillie 8y agoIt was very early science fiction. And yes it would.
- muthdra 8y agoWouldn't it already be annihilated by photons from the sun?
- cryptonector 8y agoIt was by either Isaac Asimov or Stanislav Lem. I'm trying to find it... EDIT: Also, as I recall it was about how an astronaut might determine whether a planet they are visiting is made of matter or anti-matter prior to trying to land there.
- gumby 8y agoThe short story Neutron Star by Larry Niven explores this question in a more plausible way (if you can ignore the FTL drives etc)
- perl4ever 8y agoThere was a story written in 1949, apparently using the concept of antimatter albeit not the word, about humans building the first starship and discovering that everything outside our solar system annihilated on contact. Thus the first attempt at landing on an alien planet created a catastrophic explosion. The humans of a follow-up mission gradually realize that they are not at war, but they are quarantined - there is a whole galaxy of life and civilizations that they can never participate in.