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From: myers@bnl.UUCP (Eric Myers)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Do Positrons Have Negative Mass?
Message-ID: <149@bnl.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 27-Aug-85 10:51:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: bnl.149
Posted: Tue Aug 27 10:51:35 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 29-Aug-85 23:46:04 EDT
References: <437@ttidcb.UUCP> <228@bcsaic.UUCP>
Organization: Brookhaven National Lab. Upton, N.Y.
Lines: 23

> On a more morbid note, suppose antimatter could be contained,
> presumably in an electric field inside a vacuum bottle.  Off hand, it
> seems that such an apparatus could be very small--perhaps briefcase
> sized.  It wouldn't take very much antimatter to make a very powerful
> bomb...

  Today's Science Times (NY Times, 27 August) has an interesting article
about the production of anti-protons at Fermilab, and it briefly
discusses the use of anti-matter for space propulsion or for bombs.

  One thing they fail to mention is where all this anti-matter is
supposed to come from.  It appears that the entire observed universe is
made of matter, not anti-matter (why this is so is currently a puzzle),
so it would have to be made in an accelerator, with great expense and
difficulty.  You don't need much of the stuff, that's true, but for a
rocket or a bomb you'd need more than a few million particles.

 So I think that the article was a little too dreamy and focused on
the wrong point.  Still, it is interesting to know the latest going's
on at Fermilab. 
-- 
Eric Myers,  Physics Dept., Brookhaven National Laboratory, Lon Guyland, NY
             myers@bnl.arpa / myers@bnl.bitnet / philabs!sbcs!bnl!myers