Antimatter - Articles - Zimbio

Scary, huh?

Wed, 3 Jul 2008 08:00:00 GMT

posted by kstopforth
XIII Death – Matter and Antimatter
Every particle has a corresponding antimatter particle. Antimatter has an opposite charge to ordinary matter, like the negatively-charged electron which has a positive antiparticle known as a positron (familiar to all viewers of Star Trek!). When a particle meets its antiparticle partner they annihilate each other in pure energy, which then goes on to form other particles.
But here’s the weird thing; although we know that antimatter exists, the universe is made up entirely of ordinary matter. Where’s all the antimatter? No-one knows. Antimatter particles are created briefly in particle accelerators, but they are quickly annihilated and changed into other particles. There’s a theory that in the very early days of the universe there were almost equal parts of matter and antimatter. But because there was slightly more matter, it quickly annihilated all the antimatter and we ended up with a universe composed solely of matter.
We might all like the idea of vanquishing physical death like matter destroying antimatter, but would it really be so great? Matter and antimatter may destroy each other, but out of that combustion comes new energy and new forms. This is part of the constant dance of change that is our universe, and the Death card represents the destructive part of this cycle.
As human beings we are constantly changing and adapting to our environments, but paradoxically we also resist change because we find it fearful. Even if the change is clearly for the better it often comes with a certain amount of resistance. Perhaps because change is essentially a form of death and it reminds us of our own mortality. The Death card requires us to let go and allow the change to happen. It may be something real and tangible, or it may simply be an outworn idea of ourselves. The fear, once faced, releases us to the process of change and we can transform like the particles that compose our bodies into pure energy, into something completely new.
Death Questions: What do you need to let go of? What is changing? What is dying? What are you resisting? What are you most afraid of?
Death Things to Do: Mourn. Clear our some stuff. Do something that scares you. Sit in the dark.
Death Quotes: Death is the sanction of everything the story-teller can tell. He has borrowed his authority from death. Walter Benjamin
Death destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him. EM Forster
Death is a Dialogue between,The Spirit and the Dust. Emily Dickinson
Change begets change. Nothing propagates so fast. If a man habituated to a narrow circle of cares and pleasures, out of which he seldom travels, step beyond it, though for never so brief a space, his departure from the monotonous scene on which he has been an actor of importance would seem to be the signal for instant confusion.... The mine which Time has slowly dug beneath familiar objects is sprung in an instant; and what was rock before, becomes but sand and dust. Charles Dickens
Death Movies: Death Becomes Her “'Til death do us part! Well, you girls are dead. And I'm parting.”
American Beauty “I feel like I've been in a coma for the past twenty years. And I'm just now waking up”
The Seventh Seal “Nothing escapes me. No one escapes me.”
Donnie Darko “I hope that when the world comes to an end, I can breathe a sigh of relief, because there will be so much to look forward to.”
The Quantum Tarot will be published in September 2008 by Kunati. You can pre-order now from:Amazon.comAmazon UKAmazon CanadaChapters (Canada)Amazon JapanAmazon GermanyAmazon France

A Deterministic Quantum Mechanics

Mon, 15 Apr 2008 10:35:26 GMT

posted by jeffocal

In the Imagineer’s article Why is mass quantized? Oct. 4, 2007 it was shown that the observed properties of all particles could be explained and predicted in terms resonant system in continuous non-quantized form of mass.

However, it is also possible to determine the outcome of particle interactions based on the existence of this resonant system.

On pages 59 and 60 of Brian Cregg book “The God Effect” he describes experiments that show how photons interact with different polarizing filters.

In the first experiment, photons in their natural randomized polarization state are passed through a 45-degree polarizer set halfway between the source of the photons and a vertical polarizer. Observations of this experimental setup show that 50 percent of the photons passing through the 45-degree polarizer pass through the vertical polarizer.

A classical interpretation of this experiment is that a component of the energy associated with the vertically and horizontally polarized photons defined by Pythagoras’ theorem should pass through the 45-degree polarizer. Therefore, every photon passing through the 45-degree polarizer will have a 50 percent probability of having a vertical or horizontal component. This means that 50 percent of the photons that passed through the 45-degree polarizer should also pass through the vertical polarizer.

The Quantum mechanical explanation of this is that every photon simultaneously exists in both in the vertical and horizontal polarization at the same time. Therefore, every photon that passes through the 45-degree polarizer will have an equal or 50 percent probability of passing through the vertical polarizer.

The second part of this experiment involves photons passing through two polarizing screens one vertical and one horizontal. In this case, 50 percent of the photons pass through the first vertical polarizer and none pass through the second polarizer.

The classical interpretation of this is that the perpendicular orientation of the vertical and horizontal polarizers completely blocks the passage of all photons through the horizontal polarizer.

However, these results contradict the quantum mechanical explanation for why 50 percent of the photons that passed through the 45-degree polarizer passed through the vertical polarizer. This is because if all photons simultaneously exist in both a vertically and horizontally polarized state, 50 percent of the ones that passed through the vertical polarizer should also pass through the second horizontal polarizer.

In another experiment, if one places a third polarizer between the vertical and horizontal polarizing screens and turns it so that it is 45-degree angle with respect to them, 50 percent of the photons will pass through the first vertical polarizer and 50 percent of those will pass through the 45-degree polarizer while 50 percent of those photons pass the third polarizer.

But if the 45-degree polarizer worked by only letting through vertically or horizontally polarized photons no light should get through the third polarizer because all of the photon entering it were vertically polarized therefore, they should not get through the third horizontally polarized screen.

Again, the Quantum mechanical explanation for this is each photon that was vertically polarized when entering the 45-degree polarizer exists in both states (vertical and horizontal polarization) when leaving it. Therefore the photons that passed through the first vertical polarizer have and 50 percent probability of being either vertically or horizontally polarized after passing through the 45-degree polarizing screen and therefore they will have a 50 percent chance of passing through the final horizontal polarizer.

However, Quantum mechanics cannot provide a consistent explanation why photons that pass through a vertical polarizer in the second experiment existed only in a vertical state while those same photons after passing through a 45-degree polarizer exists in both a vertical and horizontal state.

In the article Why is mass quantized? Oct. 4, 2007 it was shown the properties of all particles including a photon are the result of a resonant system or “structure” established in four *spatial* dimensions by a matter wave moving in three-dimensional space.

However, this also means that the matter wave responsible for generating the resonant system associated with a photon can have amplitude variations along each axis of three-dimensional space.

Therefore, it would be possible for photons that were vertically polarized after passing through a vertical polarizer to have there polarization shifted as they passed through a 45-degree polarizer. This shift could be caused by the reflection or interference of the wave properties of photons as they encounter the 45-degree polarizer.

However as was shown earlier photons that pass through a 45-degree polarizes will have both a vertically and horizontally polarized a component defined by Pythagoras’ theorem. Therefore, every photon passing through the 45-degree polarizer will have a 50 percent probability of having a vertical or horizontal component. This means that 50 percent of the photons that passed through the 45-degree filter should also pass through the vertical polarizer.

This does not mean the photons that pass through the 45-degree polarizer exits simultaneously in both a horizontal and virtual state at the same time it means that the angle of their energy vectors has a component in both the vertical and horizontal plains.

Therefore, the 50 percent of the photons leaving the 45-degree polarizer will have a horizontal polarization component while 50 percent will have a vertical polarization component so 50 percent of the photon leaving the 45-degree polarizer will pass through the third vertical polarizing filter.

(This shifting would not occur when vertically polarized photons encountered the horizontal polarized screen in the earlier experiment because, as mentioned earlier the particle properties of a photon are the result of a resonant structure established by a matter wave moving in three-dimensional space. Therefore, the refection or interference of the matter wave responsible for their particle properties would be 180 degrees out of phase and would cancel. However, the interference of matter wave of the vertically polarized photon with a 45-degree polarizer would not cancel because of the angle it makes with its wave front. This interference would cause a shifting in the orientation of the matter wave responsible for the particle properties of the photon. It would allow its wave energy to pass through the 45-degree polarizer and reestablish the resonant “structure” on the other side of the polarizer. Additionally due to the resonant properties of the matter wave, the energy of a photon emerging from the 45 degree polarizer would have to be identical to the ones entering it.)

would allow its wave energy to pass through the 45-degree polarizer and reestablish the resonant “structure” on the other side of the polarizer. Additionally due to the resonant properties of the matter wave the energy of a photon emerging from the 45 degree polarizer would have to be identical to the ones entering it. )

By defining a photon in terms of a resonant system generated by a matter wave in four *spatial* dimensions allows one to define a deterministic mechanism that can define the interactions of photons with a polarizing environment.

This also shows that there is a logical and consistent physical explanation for these interactions other than the indeterminism of quantum probabilities.

Later Jeff

The “Shadows” of four spatial dimensions

Guide to the Leptons - Part two - The Positron

Sat, 1 Jun 2008 23:09:28 GMT

posted by andyqpr

The positron is the antiparticle or the antimatter counterpart of the electron. The positron has an electric charge of +1 and the same mass as an electron. The symbol for the positron is e⁺or β+. The existence of positrons were first were first considered by Paul Dirac. However, the positron was discovered by Carl.D.Anderson in 1932, an American Physicist that studied at Caltech University and because of his discovery of the Positron, he won the Nobel Prize in 1936.

In the process of pair production, a photon becomes an electron and a particle identical to an electron but with a positive charge. This was first anticipated in 1928 by Paul Dirac, Dirac anticipated this idea with his wave-mechanical theory which basically said that for every particle there exists an antiparticle.

In reality, Anderson discovered the Positron by accident by using a cloud chamber with magnetic field acting upon it. During this experiment, Anderson observed a particle going through a piece of lead that was 6mm thick which was inside the chamber.

Anderson thought that it was obvious to assume that the lead slowed down the particle, which upon further observations seemed to act in an identical way to the electron. In a picture of this phenomenon, he was able to determine the direction the particle was travelling in from the curvature of the path, and taking into consideration the direction of the magnetic field, the conclusion reached was that this was a positively charged electron, later named a positron.

After the discovery of the positron, electron-positron annihilation was discovered. This is where a low energy and electron and a low energy positron collide and completely obliterate each other. However, during this process, two Gamma Photons are produced. This is because the electron or the Positron doesn’t carry enough mass or energy to produce heavier particles. The annihilation of an electron-positron pair into a single photon, e⁺ + e^- → γ, can never occur because the laws of energy and momentum would not be conserved in this process. This means that during electron-positron annihilation, at least two Gamma Photons (γ) will always be produced to obey the conservation laws of energy and momentum.

The discovery of the Positron has heralded some significant used in Medicine. One major use is Positron Emission Tomography (PET). Positron emission tomography (PET) is a nuclear medicine medical imaging technique which produces a three-dimensional image or map of functional processes in the body.

A quantum contradiction

Mon, 1 Apr 2008 10:25:32 GMT

posted by jeffocal

Modern Quantum theory assumes that it is only possible to define the probability of a particles state when it is measured but not the state the particle was in before a measurement is made. Therefore, according to quantum mechanics all possible states of a particle must be superposed over each other.

However, the conclusion of quantum mechanics that particles exist in all possible states before a measurement is made in not supported by experimentation.

This can be shown by integrating the results of several experiments involving the transmission of photons through a polarizing filter.

In the first experiment, photons in their natural randomized polarization state are passed through a 45-degree polarizer set halfway between the source of the photons and a vertical polarizer. This experimental setup shows that 50 percent of the photons passing through the 45-degree polarizer pass through the vertical polarizer.

The Quantum mechanical explanation of this is that every photon exists in a superposed or simultaneously in both a vertical and horizontal polarized state. Therefore, every photon that passes through the 45-degree polarizer will have an equal or 50 percent probability of passing through the vertical polarizer.

The second experiment involves two polarizing screens one vertical and one horizontal. In this case, 50 percent of the photons pass through the first vertical polarizer and none pass through the second polarizer. This indicates that none of the photons that passed through the vertical polarizer was horizontally polarized because if any of them were some would have passed through that polarizer.

However, these experimental results contradict the quantum mechanical assumption that photons simultaneously exist in both a vertical and horizontal state.

In another experiment if one places a third polarizer between the vertical and horizontal polarizer and turns it so that it is 45-degree angle with respect to them, 50 percent of the photons will pass through the vertical polarizer and 50 percent of those will pass through the 45-degree polarizer while 50 percent of those photons pass the horizontal polarizer.

However, if the 45-degree polarizer worked by only letting the vertically polarized photons no photons should pass through the horizontal polarizer because all of the horizontal photons should have been blocked by the vertical polarizer.

The quantum mechanical explanation is to assume that the 45-degree polarizer produces photons in a superposed state. Therefore, because the photons that passed through the 45-degree polarizer simultaneously exist in both the vertical and horizontal states they will have a 50 percent chance of passing through the final horizontal polarizer.

However, as the earlier experiment showed the photons that passed through the vertical polarizer were not in a superposed state because if they were 50 percent of them would have passed through the horizontal polarizer.

Therefore, if Quantum theory is valid it should be able to explain, in context with its theoretical structure why the photons after passing though a 45-degree polarizer are superposed and after passing though a vertical polarizer are not.

Some will point to the "Copenhagen Interpretation" of quantum mechanics to resolve this conflict.

It states that the act of observing a particle causes it to lose its superposition. This could explain why the photons that passed through the vertical polarizer did not pass through the horizontal polarizer because the act of "observing" them caused them to exist only in the vertical state so they would be blocked by the horizontal polarizer.

However, the Quantum mechanical explanation of why 50 percent of the photons in the first experiment passed through the vertical polarizer after passing through the 45-degree polarizer is because they were in a superposed state.

But according the Copenhagen Interpretation these photons would not be in a superposed state because they were "observed" by the 45-degree polarizer.

We all know that wherever there are probabilities there are alternative outcomes of experiments and tests in any given environment.

However, this discussion shows that the environment were a test takes place is also responsible for some of the alternative the probabilities that occur when an experiment is preformed.

For example, the probability that a photon will pass thought a horizontal polarizer was determine by the "state" of the environment were the test was preformed. In the test environment without the 45 degree polarizer between the vertical and horizontal polarizer a photon had a different or alternative probability of passing though a horizontal polarizer than when a 45 degree polarizer was placed between them. This indicates the "state" of a test environment has a role in determining the probability that photon will pass through a polarizer.

However, the probabilistic predictions of quantum mechanics are not based on the "state" of an environment so therefore they cannot be used to ascertain the probability that they will be applicable in any given environment.

Therefore, scientists should remember when tying to use Quantum Mechanical probabilities as the basis for defining a "Theory of Everything" that those probabilities cannot be used to predict probability of encountering environments in a "state" in which its probabilistic predictions are invalid.

Later Jeff

The "Shadows" of four spatial dimensions

Welcome to our blog about Antimatter

Wed, 11 Jan 2007 21:42:48 GMT

posted by The_Zimbio_Team
This is our group blog, which is unique because any Zimbio member can post an entry to it. Some members blog about recent news and trends related to the portal topic, others recount relevant personal stories. You can also comment on and rate existing blog entries, to voice your opinion and to help the community identify which members and entries on the portal are must-reads. Got an interesting idea or story to share with other members of this portal? Well, then put on your journalist's cap and add your own blog entry!