Do you have any idea of what antimatter is? Or, have you even heard of it before? Let me give a hint: it had been mentioned several times in Hollywood movies, such as Star Trek series, or a more recent Angels and Demons (actually, the novel with the same title written by Dan Brown was the one introduced me to antimatter.) If you still out of clue, this posting, which is devoted to briefly explain about antimatter, will [hopefully] help you to understand it.
Introduction
Antimatter is a matter consisting of elementary anti-particles, which have contradictory characteristic with particles. Put it simple, antimatter is the negative side of what we generally know as matter. Philosophically, antimatter is what balances the existence of matter. If a matter is +1, then antimatter is -1, and thus +1 - 1 = 0. To make it less vague, everything that our senses can detect is made of matters: air, water, stone, soil, everything!
The Discovery
The concept of antimatter was stimulated by Paul Dirac in 1927, when he developed a relativistic equation for the electron, known as the Dirac equation. But the real concept of antimatter was confirmed experimentally by Carl D. Anderson in 1932.
In 1995, European Council for the Nuclear Research (Conseil European pour la Reserche Nucleare - CERN) which is headquartered in Switzerland, claimed that they had successfully made a first particle of antimatter in the world.
Characteristic
Antimatter is the strongest energy source has ever known by human. It can produce energy with 100% efficiency, compared to just 1.5% efficiency of nuclear reaction. This means, antimatter produces no remnant, unlike nuclear which will leave a big amount of radiation. A single droplet of antimatter can produce a 24 hours electrical power for New York City. A gram of antimatter contains the explosive power of a ten kiloton nuclear bomb, the same as a bomb put Hiroshima to the ground.
Antimatter is not without any weakness. There is a fatal weakness of antimatter. It is extremely unstable and flammable. It will explode and annihilate everything within the range when it comes in contact with any matter, even with air.
Antimatter is said to be the most expensive substance in existence, with an estimated cost of US $300 billion per milligram. This is because the production is very complicated and time-consuming.
ProductionAntimatter is being produced at CERN laboratory by using Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which is claimed as the biggest machine in the world with its 8-miles-thick and 27-miles-long circular tunnel. In LHC, two types of particles are accelerated so fast that they reach 180,000 mile in a second (almost close to the light velocity.
Preservation
For its extremely unstable nature, to preserve it, an antimatter trap is used. In the trap, antimatter is suspended in a magnetic field to avoid contact with any matter. These applied forces suspend the antimatter in the middle of the vacuumed container, usually a tube.
The answers from the research conducted on antimatter result on another questions, especially of its position in this universe. Based on basic principles of symmetry, it was believed that the universe consist of both matter and antimatter in equal amounts. If it was true, where in the universe were those antimatters hidden? Some say Black Hole is one of its center, while other say Bermuda Triangle is one of its spot.
