Re: Creation of Matter
Posted by Uncle Al on Dec 19, 2003 at 10:05
(68.5.243.16)Re: Creation of Matter (danno might)
1) Energy cannot become matter except in the presence of a suitable catalytic field. A gamma ray of energy exceeding 1.022 MeV grazing an atomic nucleus (electric field) becomes an electron-positron pair. The more positively charged the nucleus the better.
When the atomic number aproaches the reciprocal of the Fine Structure Constant, element 137, the intense electric field will spark the vacuum - spontaneously create matter and antimatter. Electrons then fall into the nucleus in a process of reverse beta decay (as positrons are electrostatically rejected) and the atomic number drops to inert levels.
2) Conservation laws! You must obey them all. Any process converting energy to matter produces equal amounts of matter and antimatter.
3) One milligram of matter - the mass of one cubic millimeter of water - is equivalent to 9x10^10 joules. That is the heat of explosion of 21,500 kg of TNT.
4) A "glass" is amorphous. Its constituents have no long range order. An x-ray diffraction pattern of a glass gives concentric rings. A crystal's constituents are arranged with long range order. An x-ray diffraction pattern of a crystal gives sharp spots. Even given the greatest possible generality for a crystal
The International Union of Crystallography defines a crystal as "any solid having an essentially discrete diffraction diagram" including periodic, quasiperiodic, and modulated lattices; incommensurate misfit or composite structures, and polytypes.excludes glasses of all kinds.
5) What binds your "solid" of sub-atomic particles? If they are bosons (integral spin) they cool to a degenerate state of way more than nuclear density, 2.8x10^14 g/cm^3. That is a sugar cube weighing 280 million tonnes. It would pass through everything and sink to the center of the Earth.
If they are fermions (half-integral spin) only two can occupy a given energy level (Pauli exclusion principle). What binds them? If it is the Strong Force you get nuclear density. If it is the electromagnetic force you get a dilute plasma.
6) Only the least massive elementary particle of any given family is stable to decay (photons and protons). Heavier particles decay into the least massive ones. Neutrons in nuclei are stabilized against decay (if there aren't too many of them vs. the protons) because the mass difference between a proton and a neutron, 1.29 MeV/c^2, is less exothermic than accessible nuclear energy levels available to host the proton resulting from decay (exclusion principle for fermions).
What stabilizes your "subatomic particles" against decay?
7) If they are charged you have a whole heap of additional problems. If the charges are identical, how do you bind the mass against electrostatic repulsion? If you balance positive and negative, if they are all leptons or hadrons, they will react and neutralize. If you have oppositely charged fermions and hadrons you have a chance: We call that matter (or anti-matter).
8) The universal speed limit of information transfer is lightspeed. If information is transmitted superluminally, causality breaks down. This is a bad thing. The universe does not tolerate casuality violation.
It is trivial to real world construct superluminal propagation, but it won't transmit information. Look up the difference between phase velocity and group velocity.
Wavefunction collapse of entangled quanum states is instantanteous across the entire volume of the universe (Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox and the Bell Inequality). It cannot transfer information, not even as Morse code.
9) If you want to cheat about transmitting information, diffuse gravitons across folded branes in M-theory. That lets you get from here to there by taking a backdoor shortcut. Gravitons are the only particles not anchored to branes. However...
a) Gravitational waves are generated by processes with quadrupole symmetry. Shaking a neutron star (dipole symmetry) won't do it. You have to collapse a supernova or inspiral two orbiting neutron stars or black holes. All of those are rather messy, not to mention difficult and expensive.
b) Wormholes won't work. Kip Thorne invented them in response to a request for a deux ex machina by Kurt Vonnegut. Kip Thorne much later showed they are impractical.
10) HOWEVER... there is a possible loophole that allows faster-than-lightspeed everything, the Scharnhorst Effect. It is intimately related to the Casimir effect. One could therefore (at least in sci-fi, with some fancy tap-dancing and a lot of not explanation) have a nice Scharnhorst Effect communicator using Casimatter as its active modality.
Fabrication of Casimatter, starting about half way down the page.
The causality problem is yours to worry through.
--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz.pdf
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/eotvos.htm
(Do something naughty to physics)
Follow Ups:
- Feo: Creation of Matter Feo Amante 19/12 13:18 (1)
- Re: Feo: Creation of Matter Amaranth Rose 19/12 18:14 (0)