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Isn't the annihilation supposed to cause an explosion? How much energy is generated?
by scorpion032 16y ago
Isn't the annihilation supposed to cause an explosion? How much energy is generated?
- eru 16y agoJust take the resting mass of an hydrogen atom and multiply it by c^2. Try feeding Wolfram Alpha with "(mass of hydrogen) * (speed of light ^ 2)" or something, if you are lazy. It's not very much in everyday units.
- newt 16y agoIsn't the annihilation supposed to cause an explosion? It releases lots of energy proportional to the mass, yes, but one proton + one anti-proton annihilating at a time, it's a very small explosion. And they only had 38 anti-protons. I believe that one of the the articles quotes one of the Physicists saying that it "wouldn't even warm up a cup of coffee" Edit here you go: Prof Rob Thompson, head of physics and astronomy at the University of Calgary, one of the 42 Alpha investigators, said: 'This is a major discovery. ... We've been able to trap about 38 atoms, which is an incredibly small amount, nothing like what we would need to power Star Trek's Starship Enterprise or even to heat a cup of coffee.'
- InclinedPlane 16y ago1 amu of anti-matter annihilates with 1 amu of matter and releases 0.3 nanoJoules of energy in the form of gamma rays. Or about 1.86 gigaelectronvolts (GeV, another unit of energy). In comparison, the particle collisions at the Large Hadron Collider occur at energies of about 14 TeV, or roughly 7,000 times more energetic, and occur numerous times per second.