...but what do you use as bait?

[far-trader]

That's the thought that keeps popping into my head every time I see this headline from the news today:

"Scientists building largest antimatter trap ever."

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/scientists-building-largest-antimatter-trap-ever-20110223-051402-501.html

And the imagery of the "trap" and the poor unsuspecting antimatter has me grinning. It's hard to describe and I don't have the talent to draw it. Yeah, I'm not sure where my brain is today either :rofl:

Anyway, thought the science might be of interest

 

[DaveChase]

So, instead of Mountain Men trapping beaver, you got SpaceMen trapping antimatter.

These hardy and soloitary individuals take out for area's not yet explored or civilized, facing the extreme dangers of wayward comet's, blackholes and the harsh vaccum in search of the highly prized and desired antimatter.

:rofl:

Dave Chase

 

[RainOfSteel]

Now scientists are working on a new device that may be able to trap antimatter long enough to study it.

Antimatter is like a mirror image of matter. For every matter particle (say an electron, for example), a matching antimatter particle is thought to exist (in this case, a positron) with the same mass, but an opposite charge.

The problem is that whenever antimatter comes into contact with regular matter, the two annihilate. So any container or bottle made of matter that attempts to capture antimatter inside would be instantly destroyed, along with the precious antimatter sample one tried to put inside the bottle.

Physicist Clifford Surko of the University of California, San Diego is hard at work to overcome that issue.

First, they make it sound like they haven't ever stored antimatter before and about keeping it around long enough to study, then they back off and start talking about one trillion or more atoms of antimatter at a time. <sigh/>

Robert L. Forward once wrote an non-fiction piece on antimatter that mentioned he used to transport antimatter to labs on commercial airline flights decades ago; although he did say he didn't mention to other passengers what was in the box in the seat next to him to avoid a pointless panic. He was, of course, transporting truly tiny amounts of the stuff. If the magnetic bottle inside had been breached, nobody would have seen a thing, there just wasn't enough there to do anything outside a lab.

 

[whartung]

So, instead of Mountain Men trapping beaver, you got SpaceMen trapping antimatter.

These hardy and soloitary individuals take out for area's not yet explored or civilized, facing the extreme dangers of wayward comet's, blackholes and the harsh vaccum in search of the highly prized and desired antimatter.

Imagine the stories at the annual rendezvous on Tau Ceti IV.

 

[Xerxeskingofking]

"Scientists building largest antimatter trap ever."

but what do you use as bait?

the largest, most juicy electrons you can find, of coruse!

 

[fiat_knox]

What a name. "Professor Clifford Surko." Sounds like one of our characters.

"Science: Bringing A Little TL 17 To Our TL 7 World, And If We Get It Wrong It Will Be A TL 0 World."

 

[WarriorKnight]

So, instead of Mountain Men trapping beaver, you got SpaceMen trapping antimatter.

These hardy and soloitary individuals take out for area's not yet explored or civilized, facing the extreme dangers of wayward comet's, blackholes and the harsh vaccum in search of the highly prized and desired antimatter.

:rofl:

Dave Chase

Oh that gives me an idea for a belter game.