1 / 20

Antimatter: It Matters by Alex Elizabeth Heart

Antimatter: It Matters by Alex Elizabeth Heart. What is Antimatter?. Gabrielse. The Big Bang. 15 million years ago the universe was born First moment of the big bang extreme heat enforced homogeneity of energy

elysia
Download Presentation

Antimatter: It Matters by Alex Elizabeth Heart

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Antimatter: It Mattersby Alex Elizabeth Heart Image: NASA

  2. What is Antimatter? Gabrielse Image: Professor Gerald Gabrielse

  3. The Big Bang • 15 million years ago the universe was born • First moment of the big bang extreme heat enforced homogeneity of energy • Less than 1 nanosecond old energy coalesced symmetrically into equal amounts of matter and antimatter

  4. Symmetry Problem • Equal amounts of matter and antimatter came into existence • Matter and antimatter annihilate each other completely • We cease to exist Image: Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man

  5. Searching for Asymmetry • B mesons are especially heavy particles • By studying their rate of decay, science hopes to unveil asymmetry • This could help explain why matter exists Image: Virginia Tech

  6. Leptogenesis • Leptogenesis explains the asymmetry of matter and antimatter • “…very heavy neutrinos morphed into a shower of antineutrinos. The antineutrinos pulled the lepton side of the see-saw down; the amount of ordinary matter had no choice but to increase.”

  7. After the Big Bang Image: NASA

  8. Key Discoveries Each is essential to account for where our knowledge of antimatter is at today Image: Education Closet

  9. Albert Einstein Image: Cover Junction

  10. Paul Dirac Image: United States Public Domain

  11. Carl Anderson Image: Caltech Archives

  12. Science Fiction Influence • Seetee Stock • I, Robot • Star Trek Image: Isaac Asimov

  13. Star Trek Image: Star Trek

  14. Antimatter as a Fuel? “If an idea does not sound absurd there is no hope for it” –Albert Einstein Image: NASA

  15. Radiation Therapy High energy radiation to shrink tumors and kill cancer cells Image: SoftPedia

  16. Antiprotons vs. Other Particles • Photons: damage healthy cells going in and out of the body • Protons: damage healthy cells going in but not out of the body • Antiprotons: same as protons with more concentrated energy deposition and more accurate

  17. Energy Deposition Image: Lewis, R. A., Smith, G. A., & Howe, S. D.

  18. Accuracy Image: ECAA.org

  19. Antimatter is Expensive • NASA Estimates that it costs $62.5 trillion to produce 1 gram of antimatter Image cc

  20. Let’s Improve • More facilities need to focus on making antiprotons and better methods need to be identified. • According to Kalogeropoulos & Muratore "Antiprotons are the best particles for [cancer] therapy" (1989)

More Related