Does anti-matter exist?

153>Has it been proven to exist naturally? Has it been created in a lab somewhere?





I believe anti-matter to not only have different symmetry from matter (after all, that is a broad subject and matter comes in every shape and size, the fact that it has shape and size gives it mass making it matter) but to have the exact opposite behavior of matter, thermodynamically (matter, as it absorbs heat becomes less dense and increases in volume. as it emits heat, becomes more dense with less volume- i could be getting confused but im pretty sure that%26#039;s how it works), magnetically , anything that would completely reverse any action of the correlating amount of matter to the point of it simply not existing anymore.


Also, could antimatter be (for example) used to treat cancers, viruses, bacterial infections any other ailment that involves matter that needs to be deleted from the body (if the corresponding amt anti-matt adminstrd to the prob site) ?
Reply:Yes, and yes.





High energy particle collider, smashing particles traveling at relativistic speed onto a target, will created a shower of new particles, some of those being positron (anti-electron), some being anti-quarks (leading to anti-proton, among others)





Anti matter behave like normal matter in every way, except for the electrical charge. Anti matter reacts to gravity the same way as normal matter, anti matter that would be made of anti particle to form anti atoms would still reach chemically with other anti atoms (of we could keep them from coming into contact with normal matter and annihilate themselves in the process) to form anti-molecules.


The large hadron collider, which should be activated next year, is designed to create anti-particle, store them in a ring, and accelerate them against accelerated normal matter.





Anti matter is not specific about what it would react and annihilate with. A positron will annihilate any electron it encounters, no matter what that electrons is doing at that time (being part of an atom, being free in an electron beam, whatever).
Reply:Yes, it occurs naturally, although not for very long usually. It has been created in labs many times in many places. Antimatter has opposite additive quantum numbers (like charge) from regular matter. It does not have opposite thermodynamic behavior the way you suggest. Using antimatter to annhilate stuff in your body would be gross overkill and would have side-effects far worse than the benefit. It would be far better to just burn away or cut away a tumor than to try to annhilate it with antimatter, which would make a big mess of you on the way in and then shower you in gamma rays as it annhilated everything in its path.
Reply:Antimatter is the term used to describe particles of matter that have the opposite electric charge compared to normal matter. It does not say anything about thermodynamic properties, magnetic properties and so forth. It%26#039;s just that the charge is opposite. So, for example, if you had an electron with a positive charge it would be an anti-electron. That particle has been shown to exist for small amounts of time before it is destroyed, and it%26#039;s typically called a positron.





Here%26#039;s a site that talks about it:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter
Reply:If it did not exist, there would be no matter. Think about it within the context of our definition of matter(solid, liquid %26amp; gas). The real proof is in a deeper question; is matter a partical or a wave. If anti-matter did not exist, we would have no event horizons, stars that go nova, or Black Holes. We suggest that the essence of anti-matter will be discovered and proven not to be in our further exploration of Black Holes.
Reply:Anti-matter has been produced in labs. It%26#039;s hard to produce in large quantities, so as far as I know, we haven%26#039;t tested how it behaves thermodynamically, and we probably won%26#039;t be able to for a long time, although I think we have tested it for gravity, and it falls the same direction normal matter does. As for using it as medicine, definitely not. Antimatter is annihilated as soon as it touches any normal matter, so it would be gone before it reached the infection. Even if you did get it into contact with the infection, both the matter and the antimatter are turned into huge amounts of energy, which would damage a large part of the body if it was small enough and messily destroy the patient if it wasn%26#039;t. It would be like using tiny nuclear bombs as medicine.
Reply:Yes it exists, and yes it has been created or observed in the laboratory environment, in very tiny quantities.





Antimatter is very difficult to deal with because it annihilates with normal matter with an E=MC2 sized energy output. Depite the huge energy production of nuclear reactors and hydrogen bombs, the mass converted is a tiny fraction of the total mass involved. In a matter-antimatter reaction 100% conversion occurs, so that if we could somehow completely mate a pepper seed with its antimatter cousin the result would be staggering (actual numbers left as an exercise for the student).





Using antimatter for medical or other purposes would depend, mostly, on ways to contain it, since it could not be allowed to contact normal matter. Even air molecules on the way from the instrument to the site of the cancer, etc. (and what we call vacuum is full of them) would be a huge problem.