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/sci/ - Science & Math

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2084842 No.2084842 [Reply] [Original]

Imagine two solid, chargless spheres, a metre wide, floating in the vacuum of outer space, 100 meters apart, both stationary relative to each other and you. However, one is made from matter, and the other antimatter. How can you tell which is which without exploding?

>> No.2084849

charge it

>> No.2084851
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2084851

>>2084842

You get close to one and analyze its quantum structure with -- Oh.

>> No.2084854

By firing light at each sphere and then using the equations developed by the man in your picture to analyze the electron/positron behavior.

>> No.2084878 [DELETED] 

You are now aware that Dirac was an engineer

>> No.2084890

OP here. Explain yourselves, this is a hypothetical question but I am hoping for some methodology. How would you charge it without being able to get close safely? What differences would you expect in the behaviour of light?

>> No.2084900

Place two charged panels around the objects.

Ionize them. See which way the emission reflects.

>> No.2084921

>>2084842
Chronography.

>> No.2085102

http://yle.fi/progressive/flash/tv1/trailerit/pimolliverhawk.jpg
...

>> No.2085109

>>2085102
Sorry, Olliver the guys name...

>> No.2085114

Throw an alpha particles flux at one of them.

If the flux react with the sphere, it's antimatter.
If doesn't react, it's plain matter.

Of course, you'll be using a bit of its mass... but if you control the flux, there's no explosion.

Also, some hypothesis say that antimatter has NEGATIVE gravity. If this is true, it's a way to determine which is which.

>> No.2085115

>>2085114
>negative gravity

The fuck?

>> No.2085117

>>2085115
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter
>Negative matter has appeared in the past in several, now abandoned, theories of matter. Using the once popular vortex theory of gravity the possibility of matter with negative gravity was discussed by William Hicks in the 1880s. In either the 1880s or 1890s) Karl Pearson proposed the existence of "squirts" (sources) and sinks of the flow of aether. The squirts represented normal matter and the sinks represented negative matter, a term which Pearson is credited with coining. Pearson's theory required a fourth dimension for the aether to flow from and into.[1]

Of course, it's a deprecated theory. But I think this negative gravity thing could be tested true or false... if only we made ENOUGH antimatter.

>> No.2085119

>>2085117
>But I think this negative gravity thing could be tested true or false... if only we made ENOUGH antimatter.

Didn't cern recently find a way of trapping antimatter?

>> No.2085127

>>2085119
>Didn't cern recently find a way of trapping antimatter?
With lasers? Yup. And this work with plain matter, too.

However, antimatter is fucking expensive to produce. And, as far as I remember, the bare minimum of matter necessary to you detect its gravitational field is roughly 15g, state-of-art measurements.