Antimatter causes Anti-gravity ?

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Enginerd
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Re: Antimatter causes Anti-gravity ?

Post by Enginerd »

Colonel_Korg wrote:Antimatter gravity could explain Universe's expansion

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-04-ant ... nsion.html
I guess then you would need a really big bottle of Antimatter before you could make effective levitation devices with antimatter gravity -- apparently you would need a car size bottle of Antimatter to levitate the mass of a car. I really wouldn't want to be in a traffic accident with such a vehicle -- you would end up blowing up the world. I suppose though if people could efficiently and safely bottle up antimatter, there are much better ways to use the potential energy. It would make a heck of a battery.

seedload
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Re: Antimatter causes Anti-gravity ?

Post by seedload »

Enginerd wrote:I guess then you would need a really big bottle of Antimatter before you could make effective levitation devices with antimatter gravity -- apparently you would need a car size bottle of Antimatter to levitate the mass of a car.
Correction, an EARTH sized bottle of antimatter to levitate a car.

bcglorf
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Re: Antimatter causes Anti-gravity ?

Post by bcglorf »

seedload wrote:
Enginerd wrote:I guess then you would need a really big bottle of Antimatter before you could make effective levitation devices with antimatter gravity -- apparently you would need a car size bottle of Antimatter to levitate the mass of a car.
Correction, an EARTH sized bottle of antimatter to levitate a car.
If we're going to be picky, it depends on if you are referring to mass or volume when you say 'size'.

KitemanSA
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Re: Antimatter causes Anti-gravity ?

Post by KitemanSA »

seedload wrote: Correction, an EARTH sized bottle of antimatter to levitate a car.
I suspect Enginerd is correct. If 1000kg of matter creates 9,800 newtons of force here on earth, then 1000kg of antimatter should (if this hypthesis is true) create -9,800 newtons. the combo of the two would be 0 and thus G neutral, no? Put it on the sun, the moon, whatever, still balanced forces. ICBW.

chrismb
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Post by chrismb »

My G.U.T. says it will make no difference to the direction of gravity. Gravity will drop to zero and become negative soon enough - once the 3-D volume of the universe starts to shrink.

seedload
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Re: Antimatter causes Anti-gravity ?

Post by seedload »

KitemanSA wrote:
seedload wrote: Correction, an EARTH sized bottle of antimatter to levitate a car.
I suspect Enginerd is correct. If 1000kg of matter creates 9,800 newtons of force here on earth, then 1000kg of antimatter should (if this hypthesis is true) create -9,800 newtons. the combo of the two would be 0 and thus G neutral, no? Put it on the sun, the moon, whatever, still balanced forces. ICBW.
Ah, I see, he was saying that the bottle is in the car. Duh. I was thinking that he was externally levitating the car with a bottle of antimatter.

D Tibbets
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Re: Antimatter causes Anti-gravity ?

Post by D Tibbets »

KitemanSA wrote:
seedload wrote: Correction, an EARTH sized bottle of antimatter to levitate a car.
I suspect Enginerd is correct. If 1000kg of matter creates 9,800 newtons of force here on earth, then 1000kg of antimatter should (if this hypthesis is true) create -9,800 newtons. the combo of the two would be 0 and thus G neutral, no? Put it on the sun, the moon, whatever, still balanced forces. ICBW.
I would think that it is the Earth that produces the gravity and the applied force, and it would take a identical mass and volume/ standoff distance of antimatter to balance it out. Consider the Earth and Moon. There is a point between them where gravity balances out to zero. It is a matter of mass and distance . With a negative gravity antimatter would would have to be below the car. The antimatter would push away from the Earth and also push away from the car. A car near the surface of the Earth is hopeless.
But, a satellite very high above the surface of the Earth would benefit from the distance. Say a satellite ~ 30,000 miles above the Earth's surface may only need a chunk of antimatter weighing a few billion tons. to hover in place. Of course then you have to worry about the Earth leaving you behind, and subsequent acceleration from the now dominate chunk of antimatter. And remember, the antimatter will always be trying to accelerate away from the Earth, so I don't know if you could maintain any balance, especially if you got out of the 'car'. :)

If you are talking about some type of gravitational shielding, not opposition, it might be different.

Dan Tibbets
To error is human... and I'm very human.

jsbiff
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Post by jsbiff »

Seems like if you had a sufficient quantity of antimatter, you could simply levitate the car by more 'conventional' means, like harrier-jet style downward vector thrust engines (although, probably using somethign like an ion drive).

Or, perhaps a very power electromagnet (or set of them at several points on the car for stability), that repels the earth's magnetic field, or something?

Gravity is weak, weak, weak. Antimatter annihilation produces enormous enormous amounts of energy. I'd rather put the energy to use.

D Tibbets
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Post by D Tibbets »

Use the antimatter as a power source- makes more sense, if you can build and shield the reactor in a small enough and light enough package, using electric motors to power lift fans is possible. Ion engines?, perhaps if you are referring to spaceships. In the same sence, using local magnetic fields to levitate just above Earth's surface is probably impossibe. If you are referring tho space ships, then having some means to empower large powerful electrical and/ or magnetic fields could be used to push against Earth's or the Sun's fields. There is mention of using such an effect, it is similar to solar sails, except it suffers less as you move away from the Sun. The scheme I have seen is using magnetic fields to contain an extended cloud of charged particles. These will interact with the Solar wind to produce thrust. The major problem is that these charged particles need to be replenished as the magnetic confinement is not 100% efficient. At some point the tanks of material could be better used in an ion engine.
[EDIT] I should say that maglev using opposition to Earth's magnetic field is probably impossible, it is just too weak. Using strong magnets to repell each other is a different matter (like maglev trains).
Dan Tibbets
Last edited by D Tibbets on Fri Apr 22, 2011 1:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
To error is human... and I'm very human.

KitemanSA
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Re: Antimatter causes Anti-gravity ?

Post by KitemanSA »

D Tibbets wrote: If you are talking about some type of gravitational shielding, not opposition, it might be different.
Just think of the bottle of anti-matter as the equivalent of a blimp or derigible except it would work in space. Strap it to the top of your car, balance it off. Drop a bit of ballast and off you go! Wheeeee!! The problem is you would eventually find yourself as far from everything as you could get unless you ran into a bit of external antimatter that got attracted to your bottle and dissolved the containment system. Boom!

hanelyp
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Post by hanelyp »

I recall an experiment several years back to measure the acceleration of antimatter from gravity. As expected from accepted theory, acted no different from more mundane matter.

There wasn't enough antimatter to measure gravity produced by it, but again accepted theory says the same as normal matter of the same energy.

Stoney3K
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Post by Stoney3K »

How can antimatter have a repulsive force on other masses, when it has positive mass but opposing charge?

In theory, an antimatter atom should even be neutral so it should have no different interaction with the outside world as any regular hydrogen atom.
Because we can.

KitemanSA
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Post by KitemanSA »

Stoney3K wrote:How can antimatter have a repulsive force on other masses, when it has positive mass but opposing charge?
So you are saying there is not anti-neutron since there can be no opposing zero charge??? Unh... doesn't sound right to me.

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