'Antimatter' by Frank Close is an exciting short read that tries
to give its readers an idea about what Antimatter really is and how
far have we gone in using Antimatter's so called constructive and
destructive properties. The book serves as a reply by the author to
numerous questions about Antimatter's potential as a tremendous source
of fuel and its use as a war weapon capable of producing destruction
on a large scale. The first part of the book which is pretty much the
first chapter, explains the general opinions that people have about
Antimatter. Until now Nuclear fusion reactions have been known to
release the largest amount of energy in a short time. Antimatter is
capable of producing 100 times more energy than a Nuclear Fusion
reaction through a process called 'Annihilation'. The fact that
Annihilation can produce more energy than fusion has raised tremendous
interest among the research community to study more about Antimatter
and make it a viable source of energy. Having explained the raw power
of Antimatter, the Author goes on to his next part which explains the
Origins of Antimatter.
The second part of the book delves into the circumstances in which
the presence of Antimatter was deduced mathematically and then
experimentally. The Author starts with the famous Mass Energy by
Einstein and goes on to show how Paul Dirac unknowingly proved the
existence of Antimatter. Chapters 2 to 5 explains these theories in
great detail, where many Nobel Prizes were won by great physicists
along the way of Discovering and measuring this Antimatter. I wanted
to keep this review short and hence do not want to get into all the
Anti-particles that were discovered along the way, but believe me,
there was an entire family of them waiting to be discovered 50 years
ago !
The next and the most important part of the book deals with
storing Antimatter. As we might all know, antimatter is highly
unstable in the presence of a large number of its opposite, i.e
'Matter'. Matter is all that is around us and hence there is no easy
way of storing Antimatter. They need tremendous amounts of electric
and magnetic fields and it is this shortcoming that hinders in making
Antimatter a viable energy source. Another interesting concept that
the author talks about is the idea of Anti-gravity. Just like matter
interacts with gravity and tends to be attracted by it, scientists
believe that Anti-matter would interact with anti-gravity and might be
attracted by it. Yet some others believe that Matter and Antimatter
are similar to each other in the atomic level with regards to their
mass and overall charge. Hence Antimatter would interact in exactly
the same way as matter with gravity. The idea of anti-gravity is
interesting and leaves much to the reader's imagination.
The author has thrown in a short interesting chapter called 'The
Mirror Universe' in this book. I found myself reading this chapter
twice due to its sheer brilliance. The chapter talks about a mirror
universe where everything happens backwards.The idea is to visualize
Anti-matter as matter traveling backwards in time.
The last part of the book is a valiant effort by the author to
prove some of the beliefs about antimatter wrong. There have been no
traces of antimatter being found in the universe and the only
antimatter we have been able to produce are the by products when gamma
rays hit our atmosphere. In other words, we have no source of
antimatter available anywhere outside the earth. If we do succeed in
producing large quantities of antimatter which are capable of
producing large amounts of energy, the same amount of energy must
have gone into making them, so that the law of conservation of energy
is maintained. This is just the cost of making antimatter. The costs
involved in storing antimatter is much more than this and there isn't
any financial benefit to anyone using antimatter to as an energy
source. On the technological side, we are still centuries behind in
creating even a single gram of anti matter. The author concludes that
creating, storing and using antimatter is not viable now or anytime in
the near future.
Opinion: The book is filled with facts. A lot of research has gone
into deducing these facts and the author has succeeded in putting this
out to the reader so that the reader can make an informed decision.
The author does not come to any conclusion regarding antimatter but
just lets the reader decide from these facts. I found this very
thought provoking and made me look into other sources of information
just to make sure whatever was stated in this book was indeed correct.
I would suggest this book to any one who is remotely interested in
antimatter and wants to learn about it. The book is pretty easy to
understand and doesn't require a great background in particle
physics.I hope its a good read.
About the Author: Frank Close is a Professor of Physics at Oxford
University and a Fellow of Exeter College. He was formerly Head of
Communication and Public Education at CERN. He received the Institute
of Physics' Kelvin Medal in 1996, awarded for outstanding
contributions to the public understanding of physics.
Reviewed by: Dasa
to give its readers an idea about what Antimatter really is and how
far have we gone in using Antimatter's so called constructive and
destructive properties. The book serves as a reply by the author to
numerous questions about Antimatter's potential as a tremendous source
of fuel and its use as a war weapon capable of producing destruction
on a large scale. The first part of the book which is pretty much the
first chapter, explains the general opinions that people have about
Antimatter. Until now Nuclear fusion reactions have been known to
release the largest amount of energy in a short time. Antimatter is
capable of producing 100 times more energy than a Nuclear Fusion
reaction through a process called 'Annihilation'. The fact that
Annihilation can produce more energy than fusion has raised tremendous
interest among the research community to study more about Antimatter
and make it a viable source of energy. Having explained the raw power
of Antimatter, the Author goes on to his next part which explains the
Origins of Antimatter.
The second part of the book delves into the circumstances in which
the presence of Antimatter was deduced mathematically and then
experimentally. The Author starts with the famous Mass Energy by
Einstein and goes on to show how Paul Dirac unknowingly proved the
existence of Antimatter. Chapters 2 to 5 explains these theories in
great detail, where many Nobel Prizes were won by great physicists
along the way of Discovering and measuring this Antimatter. I wanted
to keep this review short and hence do not want to get into all the
Anti-particles that were discovered along the way, but believe me,
there was an entire family of them waiting to be discovered 50 years
ago !
The next and the most important part of the book deals with
storing Antimatter. As we might all know, antimatter is highly
unstable in the presence of a large number of its opposite, i.e
'Matter'. Matter is all that is around us and hence there is no easy
way of storing Antimatter. They need tremendous amounts of electric
and magnetic fields and it is this shortcoming that hinders in making
Antimatter a viable energy source. Another interesting concept that
the author talks about is the idea of Anti-gravity. Just like matter
interacts with gravity and tends to be attracted by it, scientists
believe that Anti-matter would interact with anti-gravity and might be
attracted by it. Yet some others believe that Matter and Antimatter
are similar to each other in the atomic level with regards to their
mass and overall charge. Hence Antimatter would interact in exactly
the same way as matter with gravity. The idea of anti-gravity is
interesting and leaves much to the reader's imagination.
The author has thrown in a short interesting chapter called 'The
Mirror Universe' in this book. I found myself reading this chapter
twice due to its sheer brilliance. The chapter talks about a mirror
universe where everything happens backwards.The idea is to visualize
Anti-matter as matter traveling backwards in time.
The last part of the book is a valiant effort by the author to
prove some of the beliefs about antimatter wrong. There have been no
traces of antimatter being found in the universe and the only
antimatter we have been able to produce are the by products when gamma
rays hit our atmosphere. In other words, we have no source of
antimatter available anywhere outside the earth. If we do succeed in
producing large quantities of antimatter which are capable of
producing large amounts of energy, the same amount of energy must
have gone into making them, so that the law of conservation of energy
is maintained. This is just the cost of making antimatter. The costs
involved in storing antimatter is much more than this and there isn't
any financial benefit to anyone using antimatter to as an energy
source. On the technological side, we are still centuries behind in
creating even a single gram of anti matter. The author concludes that
creating, storing and using antimatter is not viable now or anytime in
the near future.
Opinion: The book is filled with facts. A lot of research has gone
into deducing these facts and the author has succeeded in putting this
out to the reader so that the reader can make an informed decision.
The author does not come to any conclusion regarding antimatter but
just lets the reader decide from these facts. I found this very
thought provoking and made me look into other sources of information
just to make sure whatever was stated in this book was indeed correct.
I would suggest this book to any one who is remotely interested in
antimatter and wants to learn about it. The book is pretty easy to
understand and doesn't require a great background in particle
physics.I hope its a good read.
About the Author: Frank Close is a Professor of Physics at Oxford
University and a Fellow of Exeter College. He was formerly Head of
Communication and Public Education at CERN. He received the Institute
of Physics' Kelvin Medal in 1996, awarded for outstanding
contributions to the public understanding of physics.
Reviewed by: Dasa
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