The reaction between matter and antimatter powered the USS Enterprise.  Can it power my car? So matter is great, it’s the stuff that makes up the air you breathe, the ground you walk on, your beloved grandmother, whatever.  Matter is everything we know. But now we also believe that in the beginning of the universe, matter was created out of energy along with it’s evil twin, antimatter.   Now, matter and antimatter are the same thing, but opposite. The crazy part is that, because of this opposition, they can annihilate each other upon contact.  Think of it this way:  If you were traveling around another far away galaxy, and you encountered the exact replica of yourself made out of antimatter instead of matter, DO NOT TOUCH THAT PERSON.  You two will annihilate each other in an explosion of light and energy. It is super cool that there is not a great deal of antimatter around, because you would just see stuff being annihilated by it’s contact with it all the time (Grandma!) Einstein’s most famous equation, E=MC^2 actually explains the burst of energy.  C is the speed of light, and it’s really fast, 299800000 meters every second.  Square that and it’s even faster.  So even if you have something with a tiny mass, M, like an atom, and the particles in that atom meets their antimatter counterpart, they will still release a TON of energy. Way more than the combustion of fossil fuels. And no greenhouse gases!   So why don’t we just find some antimatter and combine it with all of the abundant matter around us to get some clean energy?  And to that I say, how would you find a matter container to hold the antimatter? (Spoiler alert, in Star Trek they used magnetic forces to contain the antimatter.  There is a reason this show was so good Whoopi Goldberg demanded to be on it.)

The reaction between matter and antimatter powered the USS Enterprise.  Can it power my car?


So matter is great, it’s the stuff that makes up the air you breathe, the ground you walk on, your beloved grandmother, whatever.  Matter is everything we know. But now we also believe that in the beginning of the universe, matter was created out of energy along with it’s evil twin, antimatter.  

Now, matter and antimatter are the same thing, but opposite. The crazy part is that, because of this opposition, they can annihilate each other upon contact.  Think of it this way:  If you were traveling around another far away galaxy, and you encountered the exact replica of yourself made out of antimatter instead of matter, DO NOT TOUCH THAT PERSON.  You two will annihilate each other in an explosion of light and energy. It is super cool that there is not a great deal of antimatter around, because you would just see stuff being annihilated by it’s contact with it all the time (Grandma!)

Einstein’s most famous equation, E=MC^2 actually explains the burst of energy.  C is the speed of light, and it’s really fast, 299800000 meters every second.  Square that and it’s even faster.  So even if you have something with a tiny mass, M, like an atom, and the particles in that atom meets their antimatter counterpart, they will still release a TON of energy. Way more than the combustion of fossil fuels. And no greenhouse gases!  

So why don’t we just find some antimatter and combine it with all of the abundant matter around us to get some clean energy?  And to that I say, how would you find a matter container to hold the antimatter?

(Spoiler alert, in Star Trek they used magnetic forces to contain the antimatter.  There is a reason this show was so good Whoopi Goldberg demanded to be on it.)