I had the coolest idea ever on the subject, that being to make a nucleus of antimatter, and then an electron shell around it. Then, you can store antimatter in a regular box. Breathe it, even. Then, when you’re launching it at the middle east or north korea, you use nuclear fission to break the antimatter out of the electron shells, where it proceeds to annihilate with things around itself.
I thought of this idea before I realized antielectrons (positrons) have a positive charge. I thought they had negative mass or something, not negative charge. That means you can’t spin an electron around an antiproton (which has negative charge).
Maybe we’ll think of a way to make a positron shell and an electron shell at the same time, though, eh?
Wouldn’t that be something?
Hm…I wonder how I missed this when I visited the site earlier…
Anyway, it sounds like an interesting idea, Tim. Hm…I can’t really think of any way that we couldn’t build a positron shell and an electron shell, provided we had the tech to do so.
I just spent a while discussing this with my bud, who knows a bit about chemistry, and he assures me that an OH molecule would be stable, would have an outer electron shell and an inner positron shell (and an antimatter nucleus) and would be the easiest to make. He might be very very wrong, but it’s assuring to hear that there’s some hope.
Oooh.
I thought by “cancel”, he meant “annihilate”.
I do apologize.
The solution is simple: you ionize it. You take, for instance, an atom with 2 p-, 2 antineutrons, and 4 e+, and then stick 2 e- around it.
I suck at chemistry, so forgive me if that’s impossible for whatever reason, but if we could find an atom for which something like that works, it’d be awesome.
I haven’t taken chemistry yet, but what I do understand from various books I’ve read is that the number of (anti)neutrons doesn’t have to equal the number of (anti)protons, but they must be arranged in a nucleus so that no two (anti)protons are adjacent.
Though with two protons the fewest number of neutrons possible is two (resulting in an alpha particle).
In 2p-, 2-n0 ) 4e+ ) 2e- ) two of the positrons in the first shell would annihilate the two electrons in the second shell, I believe.
I mean, won’t the positrons attract the electrons? =/
Also, to stabilize the positron shell, you’d have to have the antiprotons and electrons attracting in equilibrium. Though with two of each on either side that seems likely.
