Lightning's been in the news lately, after a paper in Nature described how gamma rays from lightning result in matter-antimatter annihilation.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171122131353.htm

(or DOI: 10.1038/nature24630)

I was taught that E=(+-)MC2. (This implies antimatter)

I'm disappointed he wasn't totally clear that all he was doing was adding kinetic energy to the base equation. Of course that adds energy to the system, but the base equation is about mass/energy (how much total energy a certain resting mass contains) not all energy. Heat the mass, you need another equation. Make it radioactive, another.

Also, maybe it's been proven wrong by now, but I recall experiments showing photons do have at least a pseudo mass, proven by their ability to move objects (like the spinning black and white squares inside a vacuum toy and theoretical solar sails).

If it costs so much money and energy to produce even the tiniest amounts of antimatter, how can they realistically make enough to power a ship and propel it to Mars in 180 days?

The actinides are, generally, "safe" to handle, like those Uranium Oxide pellets. You are more likely to damage the pellet with your nasty human oils than the uranium will you...unless you eat the whole thing, but its chemical toxicity will do you more harm that its radioactive toxicity. Uranium oxide just isn't that radioactive, that is why none of the containers or work areas were shielded in this lab.



Now, if they were dealing with a "hot" substance, one that has hard gammas (like when you do MOX fuel recycling), you have to take even greater precautions because then the radioactive problems really do start to show their heads. Not only will it damage your cells faster than they can repair, but it can start to take out unshielded electronics. This is generally only true for fission products, and a few actinides like protactinium which is highly radioactive AND chemically toxic, and generally only man-made (normal occurrences are less than a few parts per trillion in the crust).



These complications are pretty good generalization to why normal LWRs are not the best way to do nuclear, they just generate far to much waste compared to alternatives. You burn less than 1% of the mined uranium in current reactor tech and fuel cycle choices. With a thorium cycle in a molten salt reactor, you can burn greater than 90%, pushing up to 99% or higher if you try real hard. This means you generate an order(s) of magnitude less waste, and that waste generally is safe after about 300 years (radiation is about the same as naturally occurring radiation). There are also other alternates that use uranium in a faster spectrum that perform better than current tech.



A second age of the atom is fast approaching. Unfortunately, those great pioneers which made this industry in the shadow of "the bomb" failed to realize the full potential of e=mc^2. If nuclear power was developed along side the Apollo instead of the Manhattan project, we might already be in that future, alas...it was not to be.



Radiation is fascinating though! I used to believe what I read in the fear news about any radiation leading to death..turns out that isn't so true after all. The planet is a far more radioactive place then you normally consider, and FAR more radioactive when our primordial ancestors evolved. In fact, there are many people living today in what are dubbed High Background Radiation Areas that seem to suffer no ill effect, and some suggest, have lower rates of cancer than other groups. More studies need to be done, but initial findings fly in the face of the notion of radiation I grew up with (that it all is bad and it all kills you!) Some have even suggested that the creator of the entire model used for evaluating radiation risk knowingly lied about it. The entire basis for today's evaluation of radiological risk is evaluated by Muller's findings as supported by the National Academy of Sciences’ of the time. And in fact, might just be based in fear instead of evidence.



Perhaps ancient man went through the same struggles as he tried to adopt fire, some impassioned move against the dangers of fire prevented some groups from using fire and advancing their way of life. Fire, though, allowed the groups that adopted it to improve their life dramatically. The energy released from a fission event is over a million times more energy rich than any energy tech we currently use, imagine what that could mean for mankind. Fusion is over 4 times that of fission (but much harder), and antimatter over 2000x that of fission (and MUCH MUCH harder). Yes, the age of the atom has only just begun, and who knows were man will be a result? Don't settle for solar dandruff, the power of the atom will reign supreme.

"Ok, let's say all the all the gold disappeared in the world....is that like matter meeting antimatter?"

lol. yes, indeed it is.

>> ^antimatter:

pple are dying and eating shit right now over there..., no retries. and we're playing games about it. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT we're doing. it's like nazis playing nazi games. yes. that Is how it feels.


yea makes me sick too

Actually they are making this for the PC for that very reason. The tech has been out not being utilized. You can read about it here.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/109304-DICE-Battlefield-3-Looks-Better-on-Consoles-Because-Were-Making-it-for-PC

They are doing exactly what you are saying and it's going to look awesome for it.

And seriously antimatter? No it doesn't feel like that. Get off the high horse. Like asmo said, you don't like the world condition, go do something about it.
>> ^shagen454:

I'm going to come in hear and spout my gremlin ideas. So, is this for a console as well? It looks good but just imagine if the industry wasn't supporting shitty consoles how much better PC games would be looking right now? Even though PC games are going through a low-fi, indie, artsy phase right now, which I think is totally rad; we could have blazing tech going as well, far and above consoles.
The other thing I had on my mind is these games "look" good but after about five minutes my mind goes numb and I nearly fall asleep. I hate the pacing of games like this, CoD, ect. Give me more games like Amnesia where you almost never see an enemy but you're also about to shit your pants every two minutes or even 50/50 stealth-action like the last Splinter Cell where you actually have a damn choice of anything, shit, I dislike this crap for being war pornography but I'd rather play a massive/realistic game like Arma I or II - hell, I'd rather go back and play the original Operation Flashpoint where you get one-shotted from an unknown enemy after you just spent two hours traversing through a dark forest trying to figure out where that damn tank was that you wanted to avoid. Immersive tension motherfuckers, learn it, use it, enjoy it.

>> ^antimatter:

pple are dying and eating shit right now over there..., no retries. and we're playing games about it. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT we're doing. it's like nazis playing nazi games. yes. that Is how it feels.


lets ban road runner cartoons.

The more violence in art in general the better ( instead of real life i dont mean all art shud be viloint or that more art needs to be viloint) if anything it highlights the obserdity of real war also games like this are about as close to real war and violence as pacman.

>> ^antimatter:

pple are dying and eating shit right now over there..., no retries. and we're playing games about it. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT we're doing. it's like nazis playing nazi games. yes. that Is how it feels.


And?

People are dying and "eating shit", as you so quaintly put it, right now in abject poverty all over the planet. And you're bitching on the internet like so many other armchair activists. Isn't there something better you could be doing? \= )

It's pretty hard to disagree with you there.

But it looks so awesome...


CONFLICT!>> ^antimatter:

pple are dying and eating shit right now over there..., no retries. and we're playing games about it. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT we're doing. it's like nazis playing nazi games. yes. that Is how it feels.

Also from wiki:

The biggest limiting factor in the large scale production of antimatter is the availability of antiprotons. Recent data released by CERN states that, when fully operational, their facilities are capable of producing 10⁷ antiprotons per minute. Assuming an 100% conversion of antiprotons to antihydrogen, it would take 100 billion years to produce 1 gram or 1 mole of antihydrogen (approximately 6.02×10²³ atoms of antihydrogen).

(That's 7.2 times the age of the universe!)

From wiki:

The reaction of 1 kg of antimatter with 1 kg of matter would produce 1.8×10^17 J (180 petajoules) of energy (by the mass-energy equivalence formula E = mc²), or the rough equivalent of 43 megatons of TNT.

I knew it! They're storing antimatter! Dan Brown was right!

>> ^antimatter:

blahblahblah
"i'm honored to be a guest in your country" ...eeeemmm yea... idk about that one
"something something 9-11, thousands dead..."
"confident on afghanistan..." eeem... history... maybe some doubt..
anyway..
so one guy says war is good for the economy, so I could see Afghanistan making sense that way...
and then it seems like it's a money pit ala roman doom...
i voted for him, and maybe the war machine is just totally out his power ala nixon...
or maybe he's an evil fuck killing shit in the desert..
that bomber jacket/bush flashback didn't help...
anyway.. let's see what happens next.


Choggie?