NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC-This is secret.

To: All who are concerned
From: General Huck
Topic: AntiMatter Research and Military Funding
Classification: For your eyes only.

Today the Prime Minister has authorized the distribution of cash assets in relation to the research and developement of procedures that: minimize financial costs in production of AntiMatter, the creation of AntiMatter reactors, and the creation of AntiMatter weaponry. The Zambuda Military Research Authority will oversee these programs. This program will be the most complicated and costly military program ever undertaken by this nation. So in an effort to control costs and information the programs will be split into the following phases:

Phase 1
Length- 7 years
Cost- 750,000,000,0000 shares
Description- During this phase the research facility will be designed and contructed. All major personel will be recruited and research will begin. All orginizational procedures should be implemented during this timeframe. The designated materials and machinery will also be purchased and developed during this time.

Phase 2
Length- 10 years
Cost- 2,000,000,000 shares
Description- During this phase AntiMatter should be produced and systems that implement AntiMatter should be in their final stage of developement. Weapon systems should also be under considerable developement.

Phase 3
Length- 6 years
Cost- 1,000,000,000 shares
Description- This phase will be specifically dedicated to producing AntiMatter cheaply and in large quantity. All systems under developement should be finished and in service. At the end of this phase all progress will be reviewed and project continuation and viability will be assessed.

Thank you,
General John Huck
Commander ZRMA

OOC- Research

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter

Questions?, Comments?

... Why? Modern nuclear weapons are rediculously powerful, and several of them would cost way less than an equivelent antimater weapon (remember, after a certain point, so much of the energy of the blast is directed upwards that the law of diminishing returns kicks in). Unless you're futuretech and need to blow up planets or space fleets... there's no reason to develope it. It's a net energy sink (you need to put more energy into the manufacture of the anti-matter than you'll ever get out of the detonation) and the efficasy is less.

OOC: Actually, there have been great strides in reality when it comes to producing antimatter and storing it. A certain European lab (give me a few moments to get the link if you want it) has actually managed to get it down to a much less energy-intensive process than it was before. They keep it up and eventually they'll find a way to make it in large quantities for less energy than now. Part of why I use it so heavily for power generation. Of course, I'm FT and use it for plasma weapons, antimatter weapons, and a few other things...

It doesnt matter if it takes less energy, it still takes more energy than you get out of it. It always will. It's not anti-entropic.

It's not the energy of the antimatter he's going for. Antimatter reactors work by having antimatter and matter hit each other. They then instantly turn into energy, sending out radiation at light speeds. It is from that reaction that antimatter provides its power. Thus, you are always getting more energy out of it than you put into making the antimatter. Antimatter weapons pretty much work on the same principle, with teh exception of antimatter cannons.

That is simply not true. You get E=mc^2 joules out of the reaction. It also takes E=mc^2 joulels to MAKE THE ANTIMATTER AND MATTER. always. It's a reversable reaction. However, some energy is always lost in any transfer due to thermal effects, poor conduction... you name it. Efficiency is never 100%. So it takes more energy to produce the antimatter, and you get less energy out of it.

If you are claiming you get more energy out of the matter-antimatter reaction than it takes to make the matter and antimatter, you are violating the laws of thermodynamics. "Energy can not be created or destroyed, only converted from one form to another" where matter is a form of energy.

Perpetual motion is impossible.

That is simply not true.

Err, you might want to stop and think about it...

You get E=mc^2 joules out of the reaction. It also takes E=mc^2 joulels to MAKE THE ANTIMATTER AND MATTER.

And that is where you make the fundemental mistake. The idea of it assumes you are not making the matter, but mining it or picking it up as you go along. That's why the standard model assumes you are making antihydrogen and picking up regular hydrogen from space.

Also, that equation doesn't take antimatter into consideration entirely. Antimatter has proven to be a problem when Einstein's equation is applied to it, which is part of why it's only a theory.

always. It's a reversable reaction. However, some energy is always lost in any transfer due to thermal effects, poor conduction... you name it. Efficiency is never 100%. So it takes more energy to produce the antimatter, and you get less energy out of it.

Energy is not lost as much in this case due to problem with the universe being skewed in the favor of matter. Antimatter transforms into matter with ease, and yet matter has to be forced to transform into antimatter. So what you will have left over is matter in a hyperenergized state and radiation. The matter will be in a special form called plasma.

If you are claiming you get more energy out of the matter-antimatter reaction than it takes to make the matter and antimatter, you are violating the laws of thermodynamics. "Energy can not be created or destroyed, only converted from one form to another" where matter is a form of energy.

Or, I am using the laws of thermodynamics, combining the laws of common sense and laziness, and producing a result that works exactly as prescribed.

Perpetual motion is impossible.

Which is blatantly false, as the universe itself has been so kind to point out.

The only reason I am producing these is to down size my army. I figure 500 AntiMatter tactical missles would keep me pretty safe.

Perpetual motion is impossible, however using matter already available does not violate the law of entropy. Matter and anti-matter release energy when they touch. Thus, that is potential energy that matter has. So you spend a billion watts of power to make some antimatter, and you would spend a billion to make some matter, but you don't have to, the universe already has. Then when they touch, they release somewhat more than a billion watts.

Ah, my appoloigies. I didn't realize that it was possible to generate antimatter without creating an equivelent mass of matter. Everything I've read has shown that you must create an equivelent mass of matter, including the site quoted by New Zambuda. If you've found information to the contrary, I'd love to read it.

And as far as I can tell, the uiniverse has not proven that perpetual motion is possible, where perpetual motion is defined as perpetually doing work.

'Creating from scratch' and 'a reaction resulting in' are two different things, also; creating anti-matter is not the creation of mass from energy, but rather the transmutation of matter from one form into another - the known methods of doing so just happen to requior large amounts of energy; usually smashing things together at high speeds in a particle accellerator.

Not that it'll be practical for modern or near-future tech levels in terms of power generation or weaponry(existing forms are obscenely more economical); at best you're looking at an extreamly expensive, compact, very high energy-density storage medium, probally only useful for spacecraft.

[QUOTE=Kanuckistan]'Creating from scratch' and 'a reaction resulting in' are two different things, also; creating anti-matter is not the creation of mass from energy, but rather the transmutation of matter from one form into another - the known methods of doing so just happen to requior large amounts of energy; usually smashing things together at high speeds in a particle accellerator.
QUOTE]

Not nessisarily so. When two photons collide, occasionally an electron and positron will be emmitted, even though photons technically have a mass of zero. Or regard Beta decay, where a proton turns into a neutron and emmits a positron and an neutrino... even though the neutron masses more. Matter and antimatter have been created in that reaction.

But yes, current production is extremely energy intensive and any mass production of antimatter is futuretech.

We are spending all this money so we can make it modern tech. This is equal to the Manhattan Project in size and scope.(At least for us)

Throwing money at a problem does not make it moderntech. I admit you could manufacture antimatter... but the volume produced will be small, and the price very large. And then you need to worry about the ongoing costs of containment, what will happen should containment fail.... with normal nuclear weapons, something needs to go right for the bomb to explode. With Antimatter weapons, something merely needs to go wrong.

OOC: The following links are very helpful for it. Most antimatter weapons use a principle similar to how an antimatter engine works.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/antimatter.htm
http://livefromcern.web.cern.ch/livefromcern/antimatter/
http://info.web.cern.ch/Press/PressReleases/Releases2002/PR09.02Eantihydrogen.html

The third one is important because they have found a way to produce antimatter particles at relatively low energies. This means they are using far less energy to produce the antimatter particles, which further means they are getting closer to practical applications and may have just jumped ahead at least two decades.

This isn't Star Trek, but real life.

From Howstuff works

'For now, we will have to create our own antimatter. Luckily, there is technology available to create antimatter through the use of high-energy particle colliders, also called "atom smashers." Atom smashers, like CERN, are large tunnels lined with powerful supermagnets that circle around to propel atoms at near-light speeds. When an atom is sent through this accelerator, it slams into a target, creating particles. Some of these particles are antiparticles that are separated out by the magnetic field. These high-energy particle accelerators only produce one or two picograms of antiprotons each year. A picogram is a trillionth of a gram. All of the antiprotons produced at CERN in one year would be enough to light a 100-watt electric light bulb for three seconds. It will take tons of antiprotons to travel to interstellar destinations. '

From Live From CERN

'Antimatter, converting all its mass into energy, is the ultimate fuel. However first the antimatter would have to be manufactured - there is no 'mine' of antimatter'!

Antimatter is difficult to produce - all the antiprotons produced at CERN during one year would supply enough energy to light a 100 watt electric bulb for three seconds!

In terms of the energy put in to produce high energy proton beams and store them, the efficiency of the antimatter energy production process would be 0.00000001%. Even the steam engine is millions of times more efficient!'

THis is means that for every gigajoule of energy you put into making antimatter, you get matter and antimatter sufficient to produce one joule of energy. This is one billion times less efficient than a gasoline engine.

The final site simply explains how this is done in detail.

OOC: Considering how far they have come in the production of it, eventually you have to figure they'll figure out how to deal with the energy requirements. Keep in mind that we make many items now which used to be prohibitively expensive in both energy and time. The secret is just to discover how to make it with lesser energy.

On here, we can skip the required two or more centuries (rough guestimate) to discover said secret by having a scientist run across it by accident or some genius figure it out. It's happened before in real life. We're actually about a century more advanced in the area of nuclear physics than we would have been if Einstein hadn't been around.

That said, I agree this should mostly be an FT area. If a nation is going to use antimatter, the minimum is being post modern and having found a plausible way to produce it in massive amounts. And no matter how you look at it, you won't be using it to produce FTL engines without some way of dealing with the laws of physics.

OOC: We're in agreement then. I never said futuretech or late post-modern nations couldn't develop the technology... I mearly said that modern or modern+1, or even early post modern shouldn't even think of it.

OOC: For them to even consider attempting it, I was assuming at least post modern.

Modern nations can only get as far as CERN has, maybe a little farther. Working with the assumption they have geniuses on the project, it'll take them until they are postmodern to obtain it anyway.

We like to think of our ourselves as post modern, but we are not hard core futuretech either. We mix and match modern technology with technology 9 or 10 years down the pipeline. Of course this is mainly research and no weapons will be made until we can adequately control costs and contain in a matter that will protect our citizens.

THat is not post modern. That's modern plus 1. Post modern is plasma guns and hovertanks but without time travel or FTL.

And modern+1 doesn't include antimatter... it's simply not even 20 years down the line.

Well my timframe is between 6-10 years in the RL future, and just to clarify this project's only goal is to find feasible ways to make AntiMatter more reasonably modern. Something may come out of it or maybe nothing will.

THat is not post modern. That's modern plus 1. Post modern is plasma guns and hovertanks but without time travel or FTL.

And modern+1 doesn't include antimatter... it's simply not even 20 years down the line.

Actually, I must argue with that. Shadowrun is one of the best examples of post modernism, and yet it is pretty much modern +1 or +2 in technology scale by your definition.

well, then there's the fact that i am a highly FT nation, but i still use plasma weapons and hovercraft...

but how could you be producing much anti-matter? You would be much better off purchasing some technology or buildings off a more advanced nation and then using it yourself without being able to reproduce it. As in i discovered fusion tech in my first week due to some help from a space age nation. if you are researching anti-matter, then i recommend that you ask for help in researching it, be it funding or scientists from other nations
just my two bits

- blehm

DemonLordEnigma, quite the contrart. When you can upload your mind into a computer and personally battle it out with ICE programs, then we'll talk about it not being postmodern. Those were examples of how advanced the tech is, not ironclad rules. In any case, Shadowrun is Post-appocaliptic... the high technology exists, it's just not widly available.

If he asks for help, he'll upgrade his tech level to post modern. No matter how he gets the techniology, if he can use it and reproduce it, he's post modern. This is why I refuse to RP with futuretech nations... I LIKE how advanced my nation is.