4 ms·
That's interesting that atoms have tiny fragments of antimatter inside them. That implies that some day it might be possible to build an engine that runs on ext
by mrlonglong 6y ago
That's interesting that atoms have tiny fragments of antimatter inside them. That implies that some day it might be possible to build an engine that runs on extracting this energy. Space drive, any one?
- snowwrestler 6y agoI agree that it is super interesting but... empty space also has ephemeral fragments of antimatter in it. We can’t extract energy from it. There is already gobsmacking amounts of energy available to us in the atomic nucleus in the strong force, and we’ve been working for ~70 years to extract it (via fusion).
- whatshisface 6y ago"Has" is not exactly the right word to use. A closer analogy might be that momentum flows through both matter and antimatter quantum fields as it traverses between particles. It's more of a current than a charge. If you "froze" it and cut out a slice of the space between two particles, you wouldn't find anything there any more than you'd find electricity inside a slice of a cut power cable.
- frongpik 6y agoIirc, in a conversation with Feynman, Wheeler speculated that positrons may be hiding inside protons and that's why we don't see many positrons around.