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Posts tagged Frank Close

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In just a few seconds, the Sun has emitted more neutrinos than there are grains of sand in the deserts and beaches of the world, greater even than the number of atoms in all the humans that have ever lived… If we could see with neutrino eyes, night would be as bright as day.
Frank Close - Neutrino

Filed under Frank Close neutrino science particle physics astronomy

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Don’t Shake Hands With an Anti-Alien!

     You are hovering some planet in a galaxy far far away, uncertain whether it is made of matter or antimatter and hence whether or not it will be safe to land. The planet is inhabited by friendly aliens with whom you have made radio contact. They are very intelligent and understand you, and being advanced, know all about matter and antimatter.

     Naturally, they insist that they are made of matter; after all, it would be surprising if anyone chose to define their own stuff as ‘anti.’ How can we decide if their dictionary and ours coincide? What questions will unambiguously reveal whether they are made of the same stuff as us, or are anti-aliens?

     If matter and antimatter were always perfectly symmetrically counterpoised, there would be no way to settle the issue, other than gambling with a close approach of firing a tiny unmanned probe and seeing what  happens when it hits the atmosphere or anti-atmosphere. However, we know that there is an asymmetry, small but measurable, and that is what the electrically neutral variety of K mesons can reveal. They do so when they decay, producing a pion that is either positively or negatively charged accompanied by an electron or positron respectively. If matter and antimatter were perfect opposites, these two decays would also be precisely matched, the chance of each being the same. In reality, they are slightly different.

     The neutral K and anti-K are welded together in nature in such a way that they sometimes die quickly, but at other times live longer. The two possibilities are quite distinct and are known as the short- and long-lived versions. Each of these shows an asymmetry between matter and antimatter, but it is the long-lived one where the effect is biggest, they decay that leads to a positron being slightly more likely to happen than giving an electron: out of every two-thousand examples, on the average, 1,003 will give a positron and 997 give an electron. Now at last we have something to discuss with the alien.

     First, identify the K. It is no use giving its name, since the alien will certainly call it something else, but we can identify it by something we will agree about: its mass. It weighs in at slightly more than half the mass of a proton or antiproton and there are no other particles than can be confused with it. So tell the alien that we are interested in a particle whose mass is slightly more than half that of the massive particle that exists in the ‘nucleus’ at the center of the alien’s simplest atom, the proton in the hydrogen atom (or antiproton in an atom of antihydrogen.) That identifies the K.

     In addition to the neutral K, with no electric charge, there are also a K-plus and K-minus with positive or negative charge. So we much make sure that the alien and we are talking about the electrically neutral version. We must say that the property that holds the atom together is what we call ‘charge’ and that we are interested in the K that has no charge. The alien will be aware that this neutral K has two forms: one with a short life and one with a relatively long one. It is the latter that we will focus on.

     Now we come to the critical bit. In our world of matter, when the long-lived K decays into a pion and an electron or positron, it is the positron mode that is the most likely. So we ask the alien: ‘Is the lightweight particle that is produced most often in these decays the same as you find in your atoms, or is it the opposite?’ If the alien answers that it is the same, it is a positron, the alien is made of antimatter and we should look but not touch. If the alien replies that it is the opposite, an electron, then we are all made of matter and it is safe to land.

Antimatter, Frank Close

Filed under antimatter positron aliens extraterrestrials physics particle physics theoretical physics ET Frank Close

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Neutrino – Frank Close I’m starting to notice a strong correlation in the books I read – particle physics, particle physics, particle physics. It’s fun stuff, and this book is a wonderful example. It was probably one of my easier reads, but interesting none the less. Even if you know about the neutrino and how weakly it interacts with its surroundings (hence, WIMP), or that it actually has mass, you’re guaranteed to learn a thing or two about them. Their discovery is quite beautiful, actually. With simple conservation of momentum and angular momentum, it was presumed that there was a missing particle completely unseen in weak nuclear decays. For example, the decay of a neutron into a proton and an electron (which in my opinion, is incredible): one half spin particle decaying into two half spin particles (the proton and electron) results in an integer spin number, meaning that not only would angular momentum not be conserved, but integer spin numbers are restricted to force carrying particles and matter particles half fractional spins. So to fix the problem, an additional mass particle with half spin was added to the resulting particles: the neutrino, yet to be detected or discovered. The discovery is the incredible part, which of course the book goes through, along with the explanation of the Solar Neutrino Problem. Some interesting things in this book include the p-p chain and CNO cycle (energy production in stars), Cherenkov radiation, neutron stars, the oscillation of neutrinos and ultimately, the proof that neutrinos have mass. The ideas in this book stem from the core of physics, and it beautifully demonstrates that the simplest ideas can flourish into some incredible discoveries, making their way into self-made diagrams on my wall.

Neutrino – Frank Close

I’m starting to notice a strong correlation in the books I read – particle physics, particle physics, particle physics. It’s fun stuff, and this book is a wonderful example. It was probably one of my easier reads, but interesting none the less. Even if you know about the neutrino and how weakly it interacts with its surroundings (hence, WIMP), or that it actually has mass, you’re guaranteed to learn a thing or two about them. Their discovery is quite beautiful, actually. With simple conservation of momentum and angular momentum, it was presumed that there was a missing particle completely unseen in weak nuclear decays. For example, the decay of a neutron into a proton and an electron (which in my opinion, is incredible): one half spin particle decaying into two half spin particles (the proton and electron) results in an integer spin number, meaning that not only would angular momentum not be conserved, but integer spin numbers are restricted to force carrying particles and matter particles half fractional spins. So to fix the problem, an additional mass particle with half spin was added to the resulting particles: the neutrino, yet to be detected or discovered. The discovery is the incredible part, which of course the book goes through, along with the explanation of the Solar Neutrino Problem. Some interesting things in this book include the p-p chain and CNO cycle (energy production in stars), Cherenkov radiation, neutron stars, the oscillation of neutrinos and ultimately, the proof that neutrinos have mass. The ideas in this book stem from the core of physics, and it beautifully demonstrates that the simplest ideas can flourish into some incredible discoveries, making their way into self-made diagrams on my wall.

Filed under Solar Neutrino Problem Neutrino Frank Close particle physics WIMPS TOE books me

Notes

existenceisfertile replied to your post: Antimatter mysteries: Can we make an anti-world?

Do you think that if they made a few different “anti” elements that more would naturally follow? I wonder if that might be how the universe “started,” or restarted.

In fractions of a second, antimatter particles and ultimately their atoms and potentially their molecules, annihilate and decompose into other elements and particles as antiparticles are very unstable. Consider one antiparticle: it’s surrounded by our every day experience of normal matter, that which antimatter annihilates with instantaneously. To maintain antimatter, even one particle, is very tedious. Using magnetic fields, they sustain them in a vacuum, but in a continuous path so they don’t touch the walls of the vacuum (since it is made of regular matter.) CERN goes through a variety of steps in maintaining antimatter to produce an antimatter factory, which you can read about here.

So, going back to your original question, as far as I’m concerned, the only way molecules would have the possibility of being made, would be in a vacuum, in a strong magnetic field. As for life to be created in such conditions, I’ll leave it up to your discretion to decide an opinion on whether life could flourish in such extreme conditions or not.

PS: If you’re interested in antimatter, please read Antimatter by Frank Close. I’ve put up a review here. :)

Filed under antimatter ask frank close

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Animatter - Frank Close I was thoroughly impressed with this book. It was short and sweet, but it was so descriptive and insightful. It asked questions I had never previously questioned: Can we make antimatter bombs? If so, how would we go about storing the required antimatter? How much energy is really stored in antimatter? And my favourite: If we were to come across a distant galaxy, without finding out through annihilation and inevitable death, how would we distinguish between a galaxy and an anti-galaxy? Or anti-aliens? Another incredible piece of information I learned from this book was an entirely new view on Einstein’s general theory of relativity; using Pythagoras’ Theorem, we can incorporate the additional energy due to the body’s motion (the m in his equation is rest mass.) Additionally, my eyes were open to an entirely alternate perspective of the vacuum of space using antimatter. By incorporating Pythagoras’ Theorem to Einstein’s general theory of relativity, we’re left to solve for his equation resulting in a positive and negative solution. Correlated with the vacuum of space, the negative quantum states are already filled, so electrons cannot drop to these states (due to the exclusion principle.) When one of these negative quantum states are bumped out of its quantum state, we lose negative energy, resulting in positive energy - a positron. For anyone interested in particle physics, science fiction, theoretical physics, and space, I highly recommend this book. It will challenge your perspective and understanding on things you may not otherwise question. (source: incomprehensibleuniverse)

Animatter - Frank Close

I was thoroughly impressed with this book. It was short and sweet, but it was so descriptive and insightful. It asked questions I had never previously questioned: Can we make antimatter bombs? If so, how would we go about storing the required antimatter? How much energy is really stored in antimatter? And my favourite: If we were to come across a distant galaxy, without finding out through annihilation and inevitable death, how would we distinguish between a galaxy and an anti-galaxy? Or anti-aliens? Another incredible piece of information I learned from this book was an entirely new view on Einstein’s general theory of relativity; using Pythagoras’ Theorem, we can incorporate the additional energy due to the body’s motion (the m in his equation is rest mass.) Additionally, my eyes were open to an entirely alternate perspective of the vacuum of space using antimatter. By incorporating Pythagoras’ Theorem to Einstein’s general theory of relativity, we’re left to solve for his equation resulting in a positive and negative solution. Correlated with the vacuum of space, the negative quantum states are already filled, so electrons cannot drop to these states (due to the exclusion principle.) When one of these negative quantum states are bumped out of its quantum state, we lose negative energy, resulting in positive energy - a positron. For anyone interested in particle physics, science fiction, theoretical physics, and space, I highly recommend this book. It will challenge your perspective and understanding on things you may not otherwise question.

(source: incomprehensibleuniverse)

Filed under books antimatter me quantum physics frank close space pythagoras albert einstein general theory of relativity

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To give some idea of how small atoms are, look at the dot at the end of this sentence; it contains some 100 billion atoms of carbon, a number far larger than all humans who ever lived. To see any of those individual atoms with the naked eye you would need to magnify the dot to be 100 metres across… While enlargement of our ink-dot to 100 metres is sufficient to see an atom, you would need to engarge it to 10,000 kilometres, as big as the Earth from pole to pole, if you wanted to see the atomic nucleus.

Frank Close - Antimatter

(source: incomprehensibleuniverse)

Filed under antimatter Frank Close Earth atoms atomic nucleus particle physics universe quantum physics