Using the panel discussions of the most
recent World Science Fiction Convention in Spokane, August 2015, I will jump
off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION
given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. This is event #4183. The link is
provided below…
Super Science Saturday: Antimatter in
Science – A Journey from Detecting Nothing to Reaching the Stars
What do research and engineering tools to
detect atomic-sized voids or really “nothing” in materials have in common with attempts
to reach the stars? Antimatter. I will present an overview of current research
with one particle of antimatter – the positron – and the work in harnessing the
potential of antimatter for space travel. Three fundamental challenges separate
antimatter science fiction and science fact: generation, storage, and
conversion to propulsion. Marc Weber
The most I could
find out about Marc Weber (who has a picture on the Washington State University
website (no CV, no nothing else…LinkedIn, FB, etc., all dead ends. An article
says the following: “the work Weber does at WSU’s Center for Materials Research
could one day help fuel space travel…antimatter is an ideal form of rocket
propulsion. That’s because when antimatter reacts with matter, the particles
explode, creating the most powerful energy source known. He and his colleagues
are developing a way to harness and store antimatter particles called
positrons.…” and “[one] of the foremost positron researchers in the world”.
In other words,
he knows his stuff.
I don’t know
much about positron generation, storage, or conversion to propulsion; BUT I
wonder if the process might have an analogue in the generation, storage, and
conversion to propulsion of gasoline in an internal combustion engine.
Certainly the scale is different, but I wonder if there might be parallels – as
the repercussions of the invention of the ICE and the invention of a workable “warp
drive” powered by antimatter annihilation had…and might have…results so
profound as to alter the course of civilization.
Briefly, the
development of the ICE using gasoline as fuel goes something like this:
“Gasoline was
around before the invention of the internal combustion engine but for many
years was considered a useless byproduct of the refining of crude oil to make
kerosene, a standard fuel for lamps through much of the 19th century.”
How did that
useless byproduct end up powering the most dramatic change in technology this
planet has ever seen? The invention of the internal combustion engine is studded
with well-known inventors – al-Jazari , famed for authoring the Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical
Devices among which devices, you would find the crankshaft; Christiaan Huygens (yes, THAT Huygens –
the one after whom the Titan probe was named…because he discovered the moon…)
who found that he could use gunpowder to drive water pumps; and Alessandro
Volta, who invented both the electric battery and a toy gun that fired a cork
after hydrogen and air were compressed and sparked.
At first, the
ICE went nowhere because the gasoline that some of them used was scarce and few
people saw any need for the ICE-gasoline combination to move people around. The
German Siegfried Marcus, “He never applied for a patent for the motorcar…never
claimed to have invented the motorcar…[but] was the first to use gasoline to
propel a vehicle, in the simple handcart of 1870…” In fact, in England, Edward Butler invented
the first “true” automobile (sparkplug, ignition, carburetor, and much of the
rest – and was promptly slapped with a new law that prohibited ANY motorized vehicle
from traveling faster than 2 mph. It also had to have a person walk in front of
it waving a red flag. He gave up and went on to other, more lucrative
constructions.
After several
hours of searching, I could find nothing that dealt with the development of
gasoline as the primary fuel used in the ICE, so I don’t know if thousands died
making it to use it in cars, or if it was serendipitous and without it life as
we know it wouldn’t exist. As I said initially, it was just waste – the REAL
goal was to produce enough kerosene
for the booming and totally essential lamp industry. Gasoline was like a
resource waiting for a use.
So let’s see if
there’s a parallel here for the development of antimatter as a fuel: positrons
are naturally occurring particles. We never really bothered with them because
we were WAY more interested in directing and manipulating electrons for the booming and totally essential electrical
industry.
Thus far, no one
has used positrons for much of anything except PET scanning and some
experiments to look at bizarre, exotic particles. It’s like it was a resource
waiting for a use…
Marc Weber is
working to both collect positrons and store them. He has a dream to use them to
power matter-antimatter annihilation starships; and that’s exciting!
However, I all
of a sudden started wondering about the GETTING there. Even in Star Trek, we
skip the development of the matter-antimatter control and go right to warp
drive (STAR TREK: First Contact). Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any
stories or novels that would be comparable to learning to use gasoline as a
fuel during the development of the ICE – certainly it wasn’t the first choice.
Steam engines are ancient and came first; coal gas and even coal powder was
more powerful and easier to use. Gasoline use didn’t come until much later –
and only then because certain inventors made certain choices.
What will be the
history of the use of antimatter in Human civilization? I look forward to
speculating! Any ideas?
References: http://www.greatachievements.org/?id=3677,
Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/69/PositronDiscovery.jpg/609px-PositronDiscovery.jpg
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