Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site ism780c.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ukma!psuvm.bitnet!psuvax1!burdvax!sdcrdcf!ism780c!tim
From: tim@ism780c.UUCP (Tim Smith)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: Fusion
Message-ID: <1050@ism780c.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 21-Mar-86 22:19:39 EST
Article-I.D.: ism780c.1050
Posted: Fri Mar 21 22:19:39 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 24-Mar-86 00:39:54 EST
References: <[MC.LCS.MIT.EDU].848806.860312.KFL>
Reply-To: tim@ism780c.UUCP (Tim Smith)
Organization: Interactive Systems Corp., Santa Monica, CA
Lines: 46

In an article KFL@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU ("Keith F. Lynch") writes:
>
>  Cold storage, as solid pellets, also has severe problems.  The
>pellet must never touch the walls of its container.  Not even one
>stray gas atom must touch the pellet.  If one did, it would make a
>tiny explosion that would free millions of anti-atoms from the pellet,
>most of which would collide with the walls of the container causing
>millions of tiny explosions that would free trillions of atoms from
>the walls of the container, many of which would collide with the
>pellet ... rapidly escalating into a full scale annihilation explosion
>with the force of trillions of H-bombs.  Such antimatter pellets
>should be allowed to exist only millions of miles from Earth, lest all
>life on one side of Earth be incinerated by an explosion within a few
>thousand miles of Earth.

Gosh!

>  One theory says that antimatter is identical to matter only switched
>left to right.  This theory says that if Alice had stepped into the
>looking glass, she would have annihilated most of England.  If this
>theory is true, then all we have to do is somehow put a half twist on
>a small section of space, sort of like making an H shaped cut in a
>piece of paper and then taping the ends back together after giving
>each one a quarter twist in opposite directions, only in three
>dimensions.  Then, any matter put through the twist would come through
>the other side as antimatter.  This would allow total conversion of
>any sort of matter into energy, and would avoid the storage problems I
>mentioned since no antimatter is ever stored, it is generated when it
>is needed.
>  According to relativity, space is curved.  The curvature can be
>changed by rearranging masses.  So, while I see no way to put a half
>twist into space, it is by no means theoretically impossible or
>unthinkable.  The consequences of such a technology falling into the
>wrong hands may be unthinkable, however.  At least I don't want to
>think about it.
>                                                               ...Keith

Hey, you could have a lot of fun with these little half-twist matter
anti-matter flippers.  You could make a neat 3d maze, with a big prize
in the center.  There would be several paths to the prize, but only one
that flips you an even number of times.  You start out with the same
orientation as the prize...
                                        :-)

--
Tim Smith       sdcrdcf!ism780c!tim || ima!ism780!tim || ihnp4!cithep!tim