Lead
Energy has always been a very urgent need of human society, and for this reason, human beings continue to research new energy sources, including the hottest controllable nuclear fusion.
But even controlled nuclear fusion is called the ultimate energy source, so what is beyond nuclear fusion?
Can human technology prepare it now?
It is undoubtedly antimatter in terms of energy conversion rate.
So how much energy difference is there between antimatter and positive matter?
Will the development and utilization of antimatter energy lead to greater safety risks?
First, more ultimate energy.
Under the impetus of human power, the research of controlled nuclear fusion has advanced by leaps and bounds, and many experts and scholars even believe that controlled nuclear fusion will be the dominant energy source in the next 50 years.
As the ultimate energy source, controlled nuclear fusion is not only superior in energy conversion rate, but also safe and pollution-free.
And the nuclear threat from fusion is not as serious as nuclear fission, and it is more environmentally friendly.
Controlled nuclear fusion always converts 99.3% of the energy into electricity, and the remaining 0.7% into heat.
Such an energy conversion rate is currently unattainable.
The hydrogen nuclei used in controlled nuclear fusion power generation come from seawater, compared to nuclear fission, which requires uranium nuclei so uranium ore is limited, so controlled nuclear fusion is considered the "ultimate king" of the earth's energy.
Controlled nuclear fusion is the prototype of solar fusion as an energy source, using nuclear reactions to continuously release energy, converting nuclear energy into heat energy, and then converting thermal energy into electrical energy through thermal energy.
The ultimate goal of controlled nuclear fusion is to stabilize it permanently by controlling the movement of plasma in a magnetic field.
In this way, nuclear fusion can be used as a new type of energy source, constantly providing energy for all the electrical and energy-using devices on the planet.
Moreover, nuclear fusion power generation reactions do not produce radioactive elements, old nuclear materials, and greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, so it is a very clean energy source.
Compared with nuclear fission, nuclear fusion has great advantages in energy conversion and safety, but other than that, antimatter is even better than nuclear fusion.
Antimatter is the opposite of ordinary matter, it is composed of antiparticles such as antiprotons and antihydrogen nuclei, each of which has the same but anti-physical properties as ordinary particles.
Its protons are positively charged rather than negatively charged with protons, and when they meet, they undergo the same transformation of matter and release a large amount of energy as ordinary matter.
This means that when matter and antimatter meet, all the energy is released.
This is just as much energy as matter is released when matter meets matter, but in the exact opposite direction.
This is the difference between the two energies: the same magnitude, but in opposite directions.
2. Einstein's mass-energy formula.
Ever since Einstein came up with E=mc^2, people have been observing whether this formula is correct or not.
Einstein's m is the mass, c is the speed of light, and m×c^2 represents the maximum possible energy of a substance, which is the maximum possible energy.
But in everyday life, it is impossible for a substance to release all the energy, it can only release a small part of the energy.
There is an upper limit to the amount of energy that can be released, which is the value obtained by multiplying the mass of the matter itself and the square of the speed of light.
On this event, it is impossible for a nuclear weapon to release the energy of Jupiter's mass, and it is impossible to release all this energy with an explosion.
So in real life, we can't confirm that the formula E=mc^2 is absolutely true.
However, in the study of antimatter, E=mc^2 can be fully verified.
Because when antimatter and matter come into contact with each other, all the energy between them will be released.
So under this condition, mc^2 is able to represent the maximum amount of energy, so the energy released when matter reacts with antimatter is twice the mass of this matter and c^2.
So matter releases two m×c^2 energies, and the energy of this m×c^2 is what Einstein called the maximum amount of energy.
Therefore, human beings can prove that Einstein's mass-energy formula is absolutely correct by releasing the energy of antimatter and matter, and antimatter particles and ordinary matter particles will all be converted into energy with each other as long as they meet.
Therefore, the energy conversion rate of antimatter energy can be said to be 100%, which is the ultimate energy in the true sense, and antimatter can perfectly interpret Einstein's mass-energy formula.
In 2003, CERN artificially created 90 antiprotons, and the interaction between antiprotons and positive protons will release a large amount of energy, and humans can use the energy released by antiparticles to obtain electricity.
However, the cost of antimatter preparation is much higher than that of nuclear fusion, and even the amount of preparation is not much, and the antiprotons prepared by humans are not enough to be cold.
Therefore, it is impossible for human beings to prepare a large amount of antimatter, and it is almost impossible to roam the universe, so there is no way to talk about energy development and utilization.
3. The gravitational pull of antimatter.
But some physicists are not satisfied with the status quo, and they still do some research on antimatter.
Studies have found that antimatter has important symmetry, but in the universe, there are slight differences between antimatter and ordinary matter.
The positive and negative charges in the microcosm are symmetrical, but the macrocosm is asymmetrical, a phenomenon called symmetry breaking.
There is an imbalance between positive matter and antimatter in the universe, and this phenomenon is called the symmetry of the universe, which is the existence of antimatter.
Scientists speculate that this may have been left behind by the Big Bang, and that gravity was an important cause of the symmetry break.
And Einstein proposed the theory of gravitational waves on this basis.
So how does antimatter behave under gravity?
In 2013, a group of physicists conducted an experiment to verify the correctness of Einstein's theory of gravity by using the phenomenon of antimatter and positive matter attracting each other.
In this experiment, particles and antiparticles move in a magnetic field, and when they collide, they attract each other and come into contact.
These two particles explode when they are close to each other, and are attracted to each other when they are far away.
In the course of their experiments, they studied the trajectories of these particles, and the trajectories were exactly the same as those of matter.
At the same time, it is also found that the movement of antimatter particles under the gravitational force of the earth is consistent with that of ordinary matter, and even the motion of particles and antiparticles in the magnetic field will obviously feel the influence of gravity, so Einstein's theory of gravity is in line with the laws of physics.
These particles are also affected by the gravitational pull of other celestial bodies such as the sun and stars, so both matter and antimatter are affected by gravity.
Similarly, the gravitational pull between the Earth and the Sun and other planets is both between both sides and is affected by gravity, which may also explain some of the phenomena.
Scientists have also discovered that antimatter has a higher energy density than nuclear fusion, so its development and utilization will definitely become a reality in the future.
Not only is it capable of generating electricity, but it can even be used for spaceship flights.
Due to the extremely high energy density of antimatter, all it takes only a small amount of antimatter can carry the speed of a spaceship very fast, even out of the solar system.
The same mastery of antimatter on Earth also means that humans can easily destroy the Earth.
The United States once calculated that only 0.1g of antimatter could produce a 10kt equivalent explosion, which is more than 1,000 times that of a nuclear weapon of the same weight and mass.
Just 1kg of antimatter can bring a yield of 1000Mt, which is the biggest bomb of human energy in the modern 21st century.
There are currently half a ton of antimatter in the world, but it is also very dangerous, and if they are detonated, the earth will disintegrate.
epilogue
Therefore, in the process of developing and utilizing antimatter, it must be strictly regulated, and it can only be used for peaceful purposes.
Humanity's ability to master antimatter also means that humanity is better able to explain the origin of the universe and the end of the universe.
The research and development and utilization of antimatter is only a small part of the discussion, and it also has a broader application space, such as cancer treatment in the medical field.