What is it? Every particle in existence has its own antiparticle of equal opposite charge with identical mass. This means that for every quark there is an antiquark, for every proton there is an antiproton and for every hydrogen molecule there is an antihydrogen molecule. In theory this could stretch to an anti-ant or even an anti-Mr Tober.
The problem with antimatter arises when you observe what happens upon both the matter and the antimatter meeting eachother. As there is opposite charge, they arent repelled in the same way two atoms do. Upon meeting one another the particle and antiparticle let out a burst of pure energy in the form of two photons. The reason there are two photons is because photons have a minute amount of mass. The law of conservation of momentum dictates that there has to be an equal momentum after the collision. The photons therefore are radians from eachother.
Particles can also be created as well as destroyed. Provided the right
wavelength of EM radiation is achieved, the photons will spontaneously create two particles, the type of particle will be determined by the energy equation E = m * c2 Where E is energy, m is mass and c is the speed of light. The reaction creates two oppositely charged particles of the same mass,
a particle and an antiparticle. These, once again are emitted at
radians from eachother to conserve momentum. This law can be best understood if you consider the equation X2 = 4 The answer is not just X = 2 but also X = -2, just as in particle creation. Antimatter has been speculated to have potential to be used in spaceships or for a clean fuel. Unfortunately the concept is not entirely accurate as to make antimatter we need to first create a lot of energy. This means where with fossil fuels we harvest the energy of decomposed life and in nuclear power we harvest the energy of the sun forming particles, we cant harvest any natural energy in antimatter as there seems to be none there to use. There are many theories to this odd situation. One is that there is an area of antimatter in the universe that is in the same position as we are in that they will have very few particles of matter. This doesnt quite work as for this to happen there would be a small amount of cosmic rays indicatng the annihilations occurring from the distant universe. Another more accurate theory is that of Baryogenesis. This dictates that when the universe was in its infancy there was many, many more particles than are currently present. The difference in the numbers of antiparticles in relation to the particles was incredibly small, down to millions of a percent. It then goes on to detail that most of the matter annihilated with most of the antimatter leaving a small percentage of matter left over, unannihilated. This is what we see today. There is an atom that can be created called the positronium where instead of an electron orbiting a proton, there is an electron orbiting a positron. The particle has only been seen for nanoseconds at a time ut has been confirmed to exist. The positron is one of the easier particles to detect as it plays a part in beta decay, something that most radioactive sources release. The way they do this is to indirectly monitor the positron by monitoring the photons released. In theory there should be an emission on both sides of the detector of a certain frequency using an adapted E=mc2 equation. e + e+ +
MESONS Mesons are two particles, one anti, one matter. They orbit eachother for fractions of a second before annihilating eachother.
HISTORY Paul Dirac, a mathematician during the early 20th century predicted the prescence of antimatter before it had been observed by scientists. His famous Dirac Equation showing that there had to be positrons in existence. Carl Anderson who first discovered positrons through passing a photon near a nucleus later backed this up. The effect was that two different trails of particles occurred, both curving in opposite directions at equal rates. This showed that the positron had equal mass but opposite charge to an electron.
USES Antimatter is used in PET scans where the patient swallows a radioactive source with a short half life. This source then emits positrons after beta decay. These positrons collide with electrons in the tissue and through careful monitoring of the gamma rays produced after annihilation, the machine can build a tomography of the body.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/nuclear-medicine1.htm https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=Lo8NmoDL9T8&list=UUUHW94eEFW7hkUMVaZz4eDg http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/ParticleAndNuclear/baryogen esis.html http://www.particleadventure.org/antimatter.html http://hyperphysics.phyastr.gsu.edu/hbase/particles/hadron.html#c1 New scientists antimatter mysteries series A2 Physics textbook How to make antimatter by Frank Close Science Focus Magazine October 2011
