Ask A Scientist General Science Archive

Author:     zebman
Subject:    Anti-matter
Text:       I would like to know what work Argonne has done with Anti matter 
and what we as a country can do with it for a power source?  Like on Star 
Trek.

Response #:  1 of 1
Author:      Ronald Winther
Text:        I cannot say what has been done specifically at Argonne (maybe 
one of the locals will fill us in) but here is what I know in general about 
your question:  At the moment, the only way we are able to produce antimatter 
(in very tiny amounts) is in high-energy collisions using accelerators.  (And 
some is produced naturally in certain radioactive decay processes.)  There is 
no known way to filter out the antimatter to prevent it from annihilating with 
"positive" matter, nor do we have anything like the "antimatter containment 
field" used on the Enterprise.  Even if we could do these things, we have no 
way of extracting usable energy from matter-antimatter annihilation.  The 
energy that is produced is in the form of high-frequency gamma rays.  It would 
be like trying to harness a thunderstorm for electricity:  the energy is 
simply too concentrated to be drawn off in a usable form.  (So I guess we 
would need something like dilithium crystals, whatever it is that they are 
supposed to do!)  The most "scientifically advanced" energy source we use 
today is nuclear fission. And how do we use it?  We boil water with the heat 
it produces to make steam to turn turbines!  And if we do ever achieve 
controlled fusion, that energy will be used in precisely the same manner!