Intermarkets' Privacy Policy
Support


Donate to Ace of Spades HQ!


Contact
Ace:
aceofspadeshq at gee mail.com
Buck:
buck.throckmorton at protonmail.com
CBD:
cbd at cutjibnewsletter.com
joe mannix:
mannix2024 at proton.me
MisHum:
petmorons at gee mail.com
J.J. Sefton:
sefton at cutjibnewsletter.com


Recent Entries
Absent Friends
Jay Guevara 2025
Jim Sunk New Dawn 2025
Jewells45 2025
Bandersnatch 2024
GnuBreed 2024
Captain Hate 2023
moon_over_vermont 2023
westminsterdogshow 2023
Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022
Dave In Texas 2022
Jesse in D.C. 2022
OregonMuse 2022
redc1c4 2021
Tami 2021
Chavez the Hugo 2020
Ibguy 2020
Rickl 2019
Joffen 2014
AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published. Contact OrangeEnt for info:
maildrop62 at proton dot me
Cutting The Cord And Email Security
Moron Meet-Ups





















« They Don't Ask For Much... Just For Your Children | Main | Zogby: Bush By One »
October 04, 2004

Your Daily Warporn Fix: Air Force Researching Anti-Matter Weapons

Ohhh-oh-oh...

The U.S. Air Force is quietly spending millions of dollars investigating ways to use a radical power source -- antimatter, the eerie "mirror" of ordinary matter -- in future weapons.

...

In a sense, matter and antimatter are the yin and yang of reality: Every type of subatomic particle has its antimatter counterpart. But when matter and antimatter collide, they annihilate each other in an immense burst of energy.

"annihilate my protons"...

More cataclysmic possible uses include a new generation of super weapons...

cataclysmic superweapons, very hot, very hot...

-- either pure antimatter bombs or antimatter-triggered nuclear weapons; the former wouldn't emit radioactive fallout....

Following an initial inquiry from The Chronicle this summer, the Air Force forbade its employees from publicly discussing the antimatter research program. Still, details on the program appear in numerous Air Force documents distributed over the Internet prior to the ban.

These include an outline of a March 2004 speech by an Air Force official who, in effect, spilled the beans about the Air Force's high hopes for antimatter weapons. On March 24, Kenneth Edwards, director of the "revolutionary munitions" team at the Munitions Directorate at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida was keynote speaker at the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) conference in Arlington, Va.

mmmm.... revolutionary munitions...

In that talk, Edwards discussed the potential uses of a type of antimatter called positrons.

Positrons, also known as the nymphomaniacal, polymorphously perverse she-males of the subatomic "scene."

General Edwards sounds like he's very naughty, and naughty generals require spankings.

...

In 1929, Dirac suggested that the building blocks of atoms -- electrons (negatively charged particles) and protons (positively charged particles) -- have antimatter counterparts: antielectrons and antiprotons. One fundamental difference between matter and antimatter is that their subatomic building blocks carry opposite electric charges. Thus, while an ordinary electron is negatively charged, an antielectron is positively charged (hence the term positrons, which means "positive electrons"); and while an ordinary proton is positively charged, an antiproton is negative.

yes yes yes y-esss....

The real excitement, though, is this: If electrons or protons collide with their antimatter counterparts, they annihilate each other. In so doing, they unleash more energy than any other known energy source, even thermonuclear bombs....

Allright, I'm done. Anyone want to order Chinese?

General Tso's? General Tso's? Who's up for some General Tso's chicken?

Not Hot at All Update:

In the meantime, the Air Force has been investigating the possibility of making use of a powerful positron-generating accelerator under development at Washington State University in Pullman, Wash. One goal: to see if positrons generated by the accelerator can be stored for long periods inside a new type of "antimatter trap" proposed by scientists, including Washington State physicist Kelvin Lynn, head of the school's Center for Materials Research.

...

Besides, Lynn is enthusiastic about antimatter because he believes it could propel futuristic space rockets.

"I think," he said, "we need to get off this planet, because I'm afraid we're going to destroy it."

Hysterical whining isn't very sexy at all. I can just see this guy in his ponytail, strumming his doucheboy folk guitar, trying to pick up chicks by crooning about blowing up the world with positrons in his self-penned "Big Yellow Anti-Matter-Producing Supercollider."

That sorta worked in college. Thankfully, it stops working (mostly) for anyone over age 25, which is one of the few assurances that there is justice in the world.

Mirror Matter Update: Ripper suggests that I check out Mirror Matter, which is explained in this BBC piece.

This website is more breathless, but I can't help linking it, because it suggests that "Mirror Matter" might explain one of my private obsessions, the Tunguska Fireball.


posted by Ace at 11:20 AM
Comments



You want fun future weapons? Look up Mirror Matter, the stuff may exist, if it does mirror bombs might be able to pentrate right through solid matter.

Posted by: Ripper on October 4, 2004 11:23 AM

It doesn't work if the 'target' is over 25. It still works if the 'user' of such pick-up lines is under 35.

Word!

Posted by: Birkel on October 4, 2004 11:53 AM

Dr. Noonian Soong unavailable for comment.

Posted by: dillene on October 4, 2004 11:58 AM

OK, so here is the only problem... (Warning some physics geekitude ahead...possible minor math...)

A positron has the same mass as an electron. Now, how often to you here about a pound of electrons...you don't, because their really too small to be useful*. The real reason to create positrons is so that they can be paired with anti-protons to make anti-hydrogen. Now you can have a pound of hydrogen, so you could have a pound of anti-hydrogen. Unfortunately, anti-hydrogen is not effected by magentic fields (it is electrically neutral...) so storing it, without letting it touch any real matter, is very very very very difficult. So maybe you keep the anti-hydrogen very cold, like 3degrees kelvin and maybe it has some superconductity properties there and you could get it to magnetically levitate. So you got a anti-hydrogen bomb. Now you got to store it, on ships, in planes, being handled by high school graduates...and it has to be kept cold, and relativly still...

Yes, I think we have a long way to go to anti-matter weapons...


* Use E=mc^2, look up the mass of an electron, multiply times 2 (one is the electron, one is the positron) multiply by the speed of light (3x10^8 m/s) and that will give you a number that is kg*m/s which is also known as a Joule. Joules per second is a Watt... now figure out how much mass of electrons and positrons it would take to run a 100W light bulb... Then try the whole thing over using the mass of a proton times two in E=mc^2...

Mmmmmmmmm..... anti-hydrogen

Posted by: Angus on October 4, 2004 12:39 PM

PICTURES, DAMMIT! I'm a guy! I need visual stimulation, even when we're talking about Warpron. None of this female-orineted verbal warotica Tom-Clancy-meets-Harlequin BS! Show me pictures of stuff being vaporized!

Posted by: Brian B on October 4, 2004 12:40 PM

Right now, usable quantities of antimatter are as "out there" as a usable anti-gravity system. But the power/mass ratio is awesome. All mass is converted into energy in a matter-anti matter interaction. Less than a gram of matter was actually converted into energy in the Hiroshima bomb. A 10 megaton bomb converts less than a pound of it's matter into energy. But "if" it could be produced in an enormously energy intensive process, AND safely stored in anything bigger than nanonanonano gram quantities, well, yeah it would be something.

Another so far sci-fi concept is the isotopic bomb. Physicists have noted for decades that some rare radioisotopes can be made to decay far faster than their random decay half life number - with the application of electrical stimuli. A particular hafnium isotope most promising.

The Russians were interested in it. But the technological hurtles are staggering. The quantum mechanics math of understanding the process of stimuli of an isotope into decay, the loss of reactor effeciency to make it, the difficulty in separating out one of 8 or so metastable isotopes of hafnium that has this characteristic are beyond us. But theoretically, you could make 1-2 ounces of that special hafnium isotope release the energy of 10-30 tons of TNT if we knew how to do it, with far less radioactive contamination -. But a still a firecracker compared to a real nuke.

There is also the matter of economics. If you have an enemy that you absolutely have to take out because they have already used a nuke or potent biowar strike against us, our thermonuclear arsenal is relatively cheap to create and maintain as a deterrent. A 500KT weapon makes a heck of a bunker buster - and in extremis...you probably wouldn't give two hoots about innocent little Islami babies and cuddly little goats being blasted and irradiated in the process of ensuring that group or country never uses a WMD again.

Posted by: Cedarford on October 4, 2004 12:56 PM

Why would the energy of annhiliation have anything to do with anti-gravity?

Posted by: ace on October 4, 2004 01:01 PM

"Why would the energy of annhiliation have anything to do with anti-gravity?"

Beats me, I'm still enjoying my cigarette...

Posted by: Sharp as a Marble on October 4, 2004 01:14 PM

ACE - just an analogy. Usable quantities of anti-matter are as remote from reality as a useable anti-gravity system, based on current scientific knowledge, existing technology, and practical energy limitations.

The current process of creating anti-matter involves vast amounts of energy to get a few atoms produced.

Sort of like the old trap some people fall in that note that water is hydrogen and oxygen, therefore a source of perpetual energy. Missing the obvious that far more useful energy must be used to get water to separate into it's constituent elements than can be created from using that hydrogen for energy uses.

Posted by: Cedarford on October 4, 2004 01:46 PM

We don't need any more weapons with mass killing capability. We need portable weapons with tight patterns.

I am of the belief that Tesla was behind that Siberian thing. I believe we are still using his inventions to blow stuff up only in secret.

Posted by: spongeworthy on October 4, 2004 02:07 PM

For those who can't wait a few centuries for anti-matter weapons, have a look at the Airborne Laser, prototype already being tested.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/abl.htm

Posted by: SkyEye on October 4, 2004 03:07 PM

I am of the belief that Tesla was behind that Siberian thing.

I heard that the Kerry campaign has Tesla in cryogenic stasis, and that he will be reanimated to serve as the Secretary of Energy.

Zombie Hippocrates is keeping Tesla in the state physiological suspension for Kerry. Zombie Hippocrates will be Secretary of Wellness under Kerry.

Posted by: Rocketeer on October 4, 2004 03:21 PM

(In the words of Miss Piggy),
Why would they put Kelvin Lynn in an "antimatter trap"? I think your mental masturbation has progressed beyond worldly use. Why oh why would anyone put such a nice man in such a terrible trap?
You've choked my chikken once too often sonny boy. Now, Kerry is a negatronic and Bush is a positronic. If you put these nice young men in that trap thingy what happens to them? Isn't this part of the vast right wing conspiracy? Well, speak up! Is it?

Posted by: on October 4, 2004 03:22 PM

Cedarford is the resident expert on everything. Just ask him.

Posted by: on October 4, 2004 03:23 PM
Post a comment
Name:


Email Address:


URL:


Comments:


Remember info?








Now Available!
The Deplorable Gourmet
A Horde-sourced Cookbook
[All profits go to charity]
Top Headlines
Ever Wonder How The Woke Left Can Be So Obviously Hypocritical And Automatically Reject All Opposing Facts? Below are four short 5 minute videos of author Melanie Phillips explaining why. The Disturbing Logic Of The Left.*** The Psychology Behind Why the WOKE Left Can't Win Arguments.*** The Bizarre Union of Woke and Jihad.*** Truth is a Right Wing Concept. [dri]
Wow, Katie Perry is having a rough couple of years: like her career, her engagement to Orlando Bloom is now over
The Trump Curse strikes again. She went from an apolitical ditz to a Hillary Clinton Crusader in 2016 and her career bottomed out like Hillary Clinton's blood sugar level after a weekend of vodka and self-pity. The Trump Curse even follows you into space, yo. Or at least into the lower upper atmosphere.
Forgotten 80s Mystery Click, I Can't Believe It's Not Night Ranger Edition
If you would just be sensible
You'd find me indispensable
I pray deep down to destiny
That it places you with me
Whoa, wanting you here in the sheets
Wandering around incomplete
Waiting so long

I'm pretty sure I've linked this before but it's a banger.
Republican running for Mitch McConnell's seat literally trashes him in new ad
Kari Lake, just when I think you couldn't get any dumber, you pull a stunt like this, and totally redeem yourself!!!
I think the Democrat is arguing that the political appointees should exercise no control over their rabidly communist VOA employees. This is what they're always arguing -- they stock the bureaucracy with literal communists and then claim that the voters should have no control over these unfirable radicals. Lake offers a for-instance that will appeal to this Democrat of allegedly-suspect bedroom guests.
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Lalo Schifrin, the composer behind the iconic 'Mission: Impossible' theme and many more film and TV scores, dies at 93.

This post will self-destruct in five seconds.
Chuck Schumer hospitalized after experiencing "lightheadness" while attempting to diagram a Kamala Harris sentence
Wait, it says he was supposedly working out at the gym. Sure, whatev's. Maybe he had a fight with Harry Reid's exercise bands.
CJN podcast 1400 copy.jpg
Podcast: The surgical strike on Iran, NYC Democrats choose a socialist Jew-hater for mayor, Trump bitch-slaps NATO, the California clown show continues, and more!
Smart Military Blog Practical Advice: How to Stop a Dog Attack in 3 Seconds. [dri]
Recent Comments
Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ : "Proud to Be and American graph illustrates that "i ..."

Axeman: "I liked Stiller in Flirting with Disaster with Pat ..."

Dark Litigator: "JK Rowling got to make one of the best dunks in th ..."

Captain Oveur: ""Sweaty Buff dudes in tight shorts rolling around ..."

JQ: "JQ's rule of possibility: Any given *thing* has ..."

Miguel cervantes: "Theres also the zoolander gasoline piroette ..."

Anonosaurus Wrecks, Well, This Is Another Fine Mess You've Gotten Me Into[/s] [/b] [/i] [/u]: "I posted this (good) morning but it's good for a l ..."

fd: ""Sweaty Buff dudes in tight shorts rolling around ..."

FenelonSpoke : "Posted by: Dark Litigator at June 30, 2025 07:39 P ..."

sock_rat_eez[/i][/s][/b][/u]: ""190 Those X ccould Y news stories always crack me ..."

Mugsy : "Ben Stiller has started his required transformatio ..."

FenelonSpoke : "Just something funny. Funeral Director and part ti ..."

Bloggers in Arms
Some Humorous Asides
Archives