So long story short, I have had this scifi story bouncing around my head for far too long. I hope to finally sit down and start putting it together some time in the near future but that's for another time.
One idea I have that may or may not make it into he story is a weapon that creates a massive ball of antimatter, by massive I mean the size of a small moon. When I thought about the scene where this is deployed it goes off in the middle of a fleet of ships, I wanted to add some flare to it and thought it would be cool if it had so much mass that it actually started to pull the ships towards it due to it's gravity before it goes boom.
But then a question appeared, please understand I am no physicist and I am completely ignorant with this sort of thing. My question is, the amount of gravity that an object has is based on how much mass it has. If you take something like the moon, and turn it to an equivalent size sphere of pure antimatter, will it have mass? or does it have something else? also if it's antimatter, would it push things away instead of pull things in.
Please, I am not looking for thoughts on the weapon or the story or anything like that, just curious what people think about my questions.
Thanks!
Post
Wed Nov 27, 2013 3:20 am
#3
Re: Anti matter sphere
Yeah, as Sly had graciously linked to the Wiki, our definition of antimatter is just one of different charges not the complete opposite of matter. So yes, it will still have mass.
In Josh we trust.
Post
Wed Nov 27, 2013 10:35 am
#4
Early Spring - 1055: Well, I made it to Boatmurdered, and my initial impressions can be set forth in three words: What. The. F*ck.
Re: Anti matter sphere
Keep in mind, you can use whatever sci-fi mumbo-jumbo you want. If it makes the story interesting, use it and just do some sort of hand-waving in the background to make up for lack of definition.
Early Spring - 1055: Well, I made it to Boatmurdered, and my initial impressions can be set forth in three words: What. The. F*ck.
Post
Wed Nov 27, 2013 5:59 pm
#5
I know Although I really like the hard science scifi books I simply don't have the know how to know how...to write a book like that anyways. This was more of a curiosity thing and I know I could have just googled it and everything but I enjoy absorbing the smarts from you smart people on this forum
This whole idea formed yesterday and again may or may not actually make it into the story.
Re: Anti matter sphere
DWMagus wrote:Keep in mind, you can use whatever sci-fi mumbo-jumbo you want. If it makes the story interesting, use it and just do some sort of hand-waving in the background to make up for lack of definition.
I know Although I really like the hard science scifi books I simply don't have the know how to know how...to write a book like that anyways. This was more of a curiosity thing and I know I could have just googled it and everything but I enjoy absorbing the smarts from you smart people on this forum
This whole idea formed yesterday and again may or may not actually make it into the story.
Post
Wed Nov 27, 2013 11:32 pm
#6
Re: Anti matter sphere
I'd like to add that while I'm certainly no expert on the physics involved, but given the size of nuclear explosions from a mere fistful of uranium and the much higher mass->energy output of an antimatter explosion, I'd say that a moon sized ball of anti-matter is a bit more than just a 'fleet killer'. Think that might be when you've got to start worrying about taking out any planets within sight as well
Post
Thu Nov 28, 2013 4:04 am
#7
A collision between two objects the size of our moon, made of matter and antimatter, should put a visible dent into the galaxy. For destroying a fleet—or even a planet—something several orders of magnitude smaller should suffice.
Re: Anti matter sphere
Yep. I was also worried about the "moon-sized" part. Matter-antimatter-reactions release a ludicrous amount of energy. To be precise: the total mass of both objects is converted into energy, following Einstein's formula E=mc².Mordakai wrote:I'd like to add that while I'm certainly no expert on the physics involved, but given the size of nuclear explosions from a mere fistful of uranium and the much higher mass->energy output of an antimatter explosion, I'd say that a moon sized ball of anti-matter is a bit more than just a 'fleet killer'. Think that might be when you've got to start worrying about taking out any planets within sight as well
A collision between two objects the size of our moon, made of matter and antimatter, should put a visible dent into the galaxy. For destroying a fleet—or even a planet—something several orders of magnitude smaller should suffice.
Wikipedia wrote:If matter-antimatter collisions resulted only in photon emission, the entire rest mass of the particles would be converted to kinetic energy. The energy per unit mass (9×10¹⁶ J/kg) is about 10 orders of magnitude greater than chemical energies, and about 3 orders of magnitude greater than the nuclear potential energy that can be liberated, today, using nuclear fission (about 200 MeV per fission reaction or 8×10¹³ J/kg), and about 2 orders of magnitude greater than the best possible results expected from fusion (about 6.3×10¹⁴ J/kg for the proton-proton chain). The reaction of 1 kg of antimatter with 1 kg of matter would produce 1.8×10¹⁷ J (180 petajoules) of energy (by the mass-energy equivalence formula, E = mc²), or the rough equivalent of 43 megatons of TNT – slightly less than the yield of the 27,000 kg Tsar Bomb, the largest thermonuclear weapon ever detonated.
Post
Thu Nov 28, 2013 6:56 am
#8
Re: Anti matter sphere
How about combining Neutronium and antimatter. Crazy density and explosions without the volume!
Or anti-Neutronium......
Or anti-Neutronium......
Post
Thu Nov 28, 2013 9:05 am
#9
Re: Anti matter sphere
this is exactly the kind of discussion I was hoping to spark!!! I love this forum
The size of the sphere was merely an example, but also the original premise of this story is about a massive fleet of ships....very....very massive...that will need to be defeated. There's far more to it now then just that, but the idea formed back when I was in 7th grade about how I have yet to see or read about a fleet that's big enough to sate my appetite and has just sort of morphed from there. I'm not almost 30 and the story has continued to morph from there.
But anywho, this is good to know about the size, I am looking for a large explosion but a moon sized ball of antimatter may be a bit too much, even for this fleet One thing I have read about are theories about entire solar systems made out of antimatter. Going off of what has already been discussed this could potentially be possible. If you take to particles of antimatter and put them next to each other they are going to act like two particles of ordinary matter. So if antimatter has mass and gravity and similar characteristics to matter and you have an area of space that contains no ordinary matter, thus no boom, get enough of it together and you have the potential for antimatter planets and possibly antimatter stars, although I have no idea how that would work.
The size of the sphere was merely an example, but also the original premise of this story is about a massive fleet of ships....very....very massive...that will need to be defeated. There's far more to it now then just that, but the idea formed back when I was in 7th grade about how I have yet to see or read about a fleet that's big enough to sate my appetite and has just sort of morphed from there. I'm not almost 30 and the story has continued to morph from there.
But anywho, this is good to know about the size, I am looking for a large explosion but a moon sized ball of antimatter may be a bit too much, even for this fleet One thing I have read about are theories about entire solar systems made out of antimatter. Going off of what has already been discussed this could potentially be possible. If you take to particles of antimatter and put them next to each other they are going to act like two particles of ordinary matter. So if antimatter has mass and gravity and similar characteristics to matter and you have an area of space that contains no ordinary matter, thus no boom, get enough of it together and you have the potential for antimatter planets and possibly antimatter stars, although I have no idea how that would work.
Post
Thu Nov 28, 2013 12:40 pm
#10
Re: Anti matter sphere
Nice discussion indeed Remember one thing: superweapons work better as intimidating devices than by themselves. Vanishing a fleet, or a moon, or a planet is terrible, of course, but the fear behind the possibility of having such amount of destruction in the hands (possible in the wrong hands, that is)... that's the most powerful thinkable weapon IMHO. Wish you luck with the project. I have myself so many started and inconcluded projects that everytime somebody want to start want I wish they really have the patience and the perseverance to bring it to the end! So, many for you!
Post
Sat Nov 30, 2013 8:53 pm
#11
Also, your idea sounds pretty interesting and I'd like to hear more about it.
Lastly, to address this quotation, NASA are actually trying to spot antimatter galaxies by looking for x-ray and gamma ray emissions that would result from normal matter interacting with antimatter within these galaxies if they exist.
Re: Anti matter sphere
Firstly, just to get this out of the way and as others have pointed out, gravity still acts functionally equivalently between matter and antimatter. To have matter push other matter away, you'd be dealing with what'd be called "negative matter", and we haven't found any particles with negative mass yet. But it'd be useful if we did, because then we could build Alcubierre drives and create wormholes!happyguy142 wrote: So if antimatter has mass and gravity and similar characteristics to matter and you have an area of space that contains no ordinary matter, thus no boom, get enough of it together and you have the potential for antimatter planets and possibly antimatter stars, although I have no idea how that would work.
Also, your idea sounds pretty interesting and I'd like to hear more about it.
Lastly, to address this quotation, NASA are actually trying to spot antimatter galaxies by looking for x-ray and gamma ray emissions that would result from normal matter interacting with antimatter within these galaxies if they exist.
Post
Sat Nov 30, 2013 9:18 pm
#12
A few basic equations needed:
V = m/ρ -> m = Vρ
E = m*c^2
Energy contained in a given volume of neutron-degenerate matter: E = (Vρ)c^2 = V*(5.9*10^17)(8.99*10^16) = V*5.30*10^34 J
This means that 1 m3 of neutron-degenerate matter annihilating with an equal volume of neutron-degenerate antimatter will produce around 106,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 J of energy.
In 2008, the world's total energy requirements were 474 exajoules = 4.74*10^20 J.
Volume of neutron-degenerate matter and antimatter required to power the world in 2008
= (4.74*10^20) / (5.30*10^34) = 8.94*10^-15 m3
10^-15 m3 is like the volume of the nucleus of an atom, haha. With an amount of this material the size of the nucleus of an atom, you could power the entire world for a year.
The diameter of a nucleus is 10^-15 m, my mistake, so the volume of matter/antimatter would be actually much larger than the nucleus of an atom (assuming the volume were spherical, it would have a radius of 10^-5 m, so still pretty small).
Re: Anti matter sphere
Well pure neutronium doesn't exist (that we know of), but looking it up on Wikipedia, the neutron-degenerate matter in neutron stars has a density of up to 5.9*10^17 kg/m3.HowSerendipitous wrote:How about combining Neutronium and antimatter. Crazy density and explosions without the volume!
Or anti-Neutronium......
A few basic equations needed:
V = m/ρ -> m = Vρ
E = m*c^2
Energy contained in a given volume of neutron-degenerate matter: E = (Vρ)c^2 = V*(5.9*10^17)(8.99*10^16) = V*5.30*10^34 J
This means that 1 m3 of neutron-degenerate matter annihilating with an equal volume of neutron-degenerate antimatter will produce around 106,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 J of energy.
In 2008, the world's total energy requirements were 474 exajoules = 4.74*10^20 J.
Volume of neutron-degenerate matter and antimatter required to power the world in 2008
= (4.74*10^20) / (5.30*10^34) = 8.94*10^-15 m3
The diameter of a nucleus is 10^-15 m, my mistake, so the volume of matter/antimatter would be actually much larger than the nucleus of an atom (assuming the volume were spherical, it would have a radius of 10^-5 m, so still pretty small).
Post
Mon Dec 02, 2013 1:23 pm
#13
If you are talking about my story I hope to soon start actually getting my thoughts together on paper and finally writing it. There are scenes that are going to be in it that have played over and over again in my head for almost two decades now and it's starting to drive me nuts! It's just hard finding time to put the focus I need into it.
I will start a new post if people are actually still interested in it when I do start.
If that's not what you meant by that statement then my bad
Re: Anti matter sphere
ThymineC wrote:happyguy142 wrote:
Also, your idea sounds pretty interesting and I'd like to hear more about it.
If you are talking about my story I hope to soon start actually getting my thoughts together on paper and finally writing it. There are scenes that are going to be in it that have played over and over again in my head for almost two decades now and it's starting to drive me nuts! It's just hard finding time to put the focus I need into it.
I will start a new post if people are actually still interested in it when I do start.
If that's not what you meant by that statement then my bad
Post
Mon Dec 02, 2013 3:41 pm
#14
Re: Anti matter sphere
Just the idea of how an antimatter ball gets created and what it's used for and such.
How does it get created anyway? It's meant to be a ball of antimatter the size of a small moon, right? Let's assume it's equal in mass to Phobos. That gives it a mass of 1.07*10^16 kg. Even if you could produce all of the antimatter with 100% efficiency, it'd take nearly 1 billion trillion trillion joules of energy to do so. Or is the antimatter captured from elsewhere and just contained and added to this moon?
How does it get created anyway? It's meant to be a ball of antimatter the size of a small moon, right? Let's assume it's equal in mass to Phobos. That gives it a mass of 1.07*10^16 kg. Even if you could produce all of the antimatter with 100% efficiency, it'd take nearly 1 billion trillion trillion joules of energy to do so. Or is the antimatter captured from elsewhere and just contained and added to this moon?
Post
Mon Dec 02, 2013 6:23 pm
#15
Re: Anti matter sphere
haha, gotcha , to be honest, I haven't put that much thought into it. I seriously came up with the antimatter weapon one day then started this thread shortly after to see how realistic it would be.
I know it's scifi and it doesn't necessarily have to follow actual science but I don't want it to be so far from reality that it's completely way out there. From the sounds of it I probably won't be using the large sphere of antimatter in the story as the big weapon, unless I can think of a way to make it seem slightly realistic. If I do It probably won't be a moon size one, definitely something smaller or maybe there can be more then one sphere that is used. They can be spread throughout the fleet some how then go off in lots of big pretty explosions.
This definitely requires more thought.
I know it's scifi and it doesn't necessarily have to follow actual science but I don't want it to be so far from reality that it's completely way out there. From the sounds of it I probably won't be using the large sphere of antimatter in the story as the big weapon, unless I can think of a way to make it seem slightly realistic. If I do It probably won't be a moon size one, definitely something smaller or maybe there can be more then one sphere that is used. They can be spread throughout the fleet some how then go off in lots of big pretty explosions.
This definitely requires more thought.