Matter-Antimatter, Repulsive?!

V

Victor S

Temporal Novice
Back in 1992, I was contemplating that with all the symmetry in the universe, Gravity must have a repulsive component. I discussed this with my physics professor who was also a good friend of mine. He told me that I was looking for something with negative mass. I thought about this that night and then it hit me. OF course! What properties would negative mass have? Much like electric charges, it would add to positive mass to neutralize it leaving no mass. What does this? Antimatter! This is not obvious to physicists because even after a particle and antiparticle annihilate, an equivalent amount of energy is left behind usually in the form of two gamma ray photons. But what if energy is NOT the same as mass? Einstein was correct in relating that mass and energy are interchangeable, but does not necessarily mean equivalent gravitationally. Physicists assume that since light is affected by a gravitational field, therefore it must also have mass (in this case its gravitational field is caused by the energy contained within it). But why does anything following a gravitational field have to have mass? Since a gravitational field is a curvature in space-time, anything entering into curved space must follow the path of that space, irregardless of whether it contains matter or not. Getting back to the topic of matter and antimatter. If antimatter has negative mass, then -m+m=0. All that's left is pure energy with no mass. Just as when electrical charges annihilate there is still mass and energy; when matter and antimatter annihilate, there is only energy. This indicates that energy is more fundamental than mass, just as mass "charge" is more fundamental than electrical charge (mass is required to be present for electrical charge to exist).

NEWTONIAN LAW OF GRAVITATION
Newton stated the law for gravitation as follows:
*********2
F = GMm/R

G is the constant for gravitation equal to about -6.67 X 10E-11 Nm2/kg2.

Much like the electrical force, the sign of the force depends on the signs of the masses. However, since the constant of gravity has an opposite sign to the constant for the electric force (Coulomb's Law k=9.0 X 10E9), it means that unlike electrical where opposites attract, Newton's law says that negative mass would REPEL positive mass charge. Gravity is ultimately assymetrical to the electric force. There are plenty of mounting evidence for this. I've read articles on antimatter jets leaving the galactic disk (I wonder how they determined it was antimatter?). At the time I discussed this with my friend, I pondered how this could be since I thought they would have experimentally verified that antimatter was gravitationally attracted to matter. He replied that particle accelerators move antimatter so fast and that electromagnets focus the particles into such a tight stream they can't determine whether the antiparticles are being pushed away from the earth or pulled toward it.

EINSTEIN'S GENERAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY
Einstein described matter as a warp in the fabric of space-time, much like setting a ball on a sheet pulled tight makes an indentation in the sheet. If you were to shoot a marble near the object so that it hits the indentation, the curvature will change the path of the marble from a straight line to following the curve toward a new direction. If we can imagine matter being a paraboloid-shaped hole, then we can imagine antimatter in Einstein's framework as being a paraboloid-shaped "hill". When matter approaches the antimatter hill, its path would be altered just as before. However, a marble glancing off a hill would move away from the hill. It would be repelled from the antimatter. Similarly, just as two troughs (matter-matter) of two waves reinforce each other, matter combines with matter to form a "deeper hole". Two crests of two waves also reinforce each other and similarly two "hills" of antimatter would form a larger hill (a stronger antimatter gravity field). Finally, the trough of a wave combines with an equally high crest (matter-antimatter), the waves disappear and the energy dissipates (it can't be destroyed due to the law of conservation of energy). Even Einstein's General Theory of Relativity agrees with this viewpoint.

THE EXPERIMENT
My friend suggested that this theory can be tested by trapping an antiparticle within a magnetic field, then letting it go and see if it is attracted toward or repelled away from the earth. This is the only way that we could be sure that electrical forces were not overpowering the gravitational force. By the annihilation, we can track the photons given off and determine the antiparticle's position when it was annihilated.

Please feel free to make your own comments on this. I'd like to hear from others on this, but this much is clear: Every current law of physics seems to support repulsion of antimatter and matter. I don't understand how they think that this interaction is attractive.

In 1988, a man in Fairfield, CA by the name of W.C. Wright claimed that gravity was repulsive and tried to use the equation that governs electromagnetic waves interacting with antennas to prove it and challenged others to come up with a similar equation using current laws of physics. His application of the equation was a little to convenient since two of the values he arbitrarily set at 1 and have key numbers for each planet supposed to be related to electromagnetism. I was in high school but was still able to show that his equation could be derived from Newton's Law of Gravitation and a formula describing orbital velocities. I further showed that his key numbers were directly proportional to the square roots of the masses of the planets. Does anyone remember hearing about this guy? He used articles that described the gravity of Jupiter repelling particles from the planet and that some planet outside the orbit of Pluto was pushing the outer planets towards the Sun causing the orbits of Neptune and Pluto to overlap. This was one of the things that led to the hypothesis of a "baby Jupiter" beyond Pluto. Nothing came of this just as it appears nothing came from "cold fusion" (although I hear that overseas this is actually alive and well and WORKING). W.C. Wright tried to prove that matter repels matter. However as previously shown, I believe this role is fulfilled within antimatter.

This will be fundamental in establishing a "warp drive" and probably even to realize time travel backwards. All comments are welcome.


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Victor Sciortino

<This message has been edited by Victor S (edited 01 November 2000).>
 
The general theory is that there are four possible types of matter: matter, anti-matter, neg-matter, and anti-neg-matter. neg-matter has the antigravity properties you describe, and annihilates with ordinary matter to produce absolutely nothing. But it's an exotic form of matter and has never been observed. Sorry I don't have more time, I'll post more some other day.
 
Here is one theory I've heard:
matter itself starts out as a wave traveling through space until it hits a magnetic feild.
that magnetic feild hits it and twists it and it turns into a particle. it is now matter.
when light is traveling in a vacuum without a magnetic feild it is a wave but when it hits a magnetic feild the feild will take the wave and curve it. spins the wave and makes a ball of energy that is known as a particle. a photon.
the spin of the energy being spun into a particle we are dealing with frequencies.....
 
This is the first I've heard of neg-matter and anti-neg matter although I have heard of exotic matter (which I believe is theorized to behave in a different way). However, this proposal would seem to violate one of the most necessary and fundamental theories of physics: conservation of mass-energy. What you refer to is an interaction different from the one I'm addressing: negative energy. Just as when electrical charges annihilate, there is still mass and energy present. Electromagnetism conserves these quantities. With mass charge, when matter and antimatter annihilate they still leave energy. With gravity, this quantity is conserved. With negative energy (which I believe Hawking hit on it when he discussed virtual particles (negative energy) and real particles (positive energy) in regards to his discussions on black hole evaporation and how it works. This probably involves a force undiscovered or unnamed by physicists and I'm currently researching it. I believe energy and this force to be the most fundamental following by mass and gravity and finally electric charge and electromagnetism. This is the hierarchy I've set up so far in my mind:

Nothing (Void)
Energy (Positive) (Negative)
Mass(Positive)(Negative) (Negative)(Positive)
Electrical(+)(-) (-)(+) (+)(-) (-)(+)

This reflects the CPT Theorem: when a matter particle has positive charge, antimatter has a negative charge and vice versa. This is considering it has positive energy (which describes all real particles). The equivalent virtual particle of negative energy and negative mass (antimatter) in positive (real particles) energy would have matter's characteristics. THis also reflects what Pamela discussed: matter is energy coalesced.
 
OK, I finally have some time again. Here goes.

I believe that it has already been shown that antimatter has positive mass, the same as normal matter - this as a consequence of the creation of antimatter in particle accelerators - antimatter obeys normal conservation of momentum. That is, its mass has a "positive" value. This can be deduced from simple particle decays - if antimatter had negative mass, it would go flinging off in the opposite direction. And it makes sense, too - if the mass is positive, then when matter and antimatter meet, they will release energy equivalent to their combined masses. I don't see why you would argue with this, since it seems obvious from the basic premise.

Negmatter (and its counterpart antinegmatter), on the other hand, would have NEGATIVE mass = negative energy. Negative energy is known to exist - look at the Casimir force. The trouble is just getting hold of enough of it to make matter - it tends to not like to exist for a long time.

But yes, matter is energy coalesced - or more simply, matter is one of the forms of energy, of which there are many.
 
Dear Janus,

Thank you for your reply.

First, I thought that matter-antimatter attractiveness had already been proven also when I first talked of the idea. I discovered I was wrong when I talked to a friend of mine who used to work for the military and now teaches physics in college. He told me that the particles within accelerators (which generate antimatter usually by smashing particles into some target such as gold) have antimatter moving so fast through them they really can't tell whether it's attracted or repelled by the earth. Second, remember that electromagnetism is so much more powerful than gravity that it overwhelms any contribution gravity makes to the net force on the antimatter (if I remember correctly I believe electromagnetism is about 30,000 times stronger than gravity). The electromagnets used to focus the particles act from all directions and are so powerful that they allow no opportunity to see any up-down motion. Also, remember that due to the CPT Theorem particles and antiparticles always have opposite electrical charge (meaning they are electrically attractive); which again would overwhelm any gravitational influences. Finally, when opposite electrical charges annihilate, the energy from the electric potential fields must change into some other form of energy but the energy is not lost from the fields (law of conservation of energy). Just because the total electric charge for the system equals zero doesn't imply that the total energy from the electrical fields is also zero. The same applies to gravity.
Mass charges will still release energy when they annihilate equivalent to the total energy contained within the fields. However, there will be no mass left when they do annihilate. What does this? Antimatter. If antimatter is positive mass, why is there no mass left over when a particle and its antiparticle hit each other? Within this interaction usually all that's left is pure energy, no mass. Two materials of positive mass should add together to generate a product with the sum of the two masses.

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Victor Sciortino


<This message has been edited by Victor S (edited 05 November 2000).>
 
"when opposite electrical charges annihilate, the energy from the electric potential fields must change into some other form of energy but the energy is not lost from the fields (law of conservation of energy). Just because the total electric charge for the system equals zero doesn't imply that the total energy from the electrical fields is also zero. The same applies to gravity."
I agree; however, this is not the same as the energy release in matter/antimatter annihilation. What you're describing is the potential energy of a system - the energy contained in the separation of the parts and their attracton for one another. Of course, this must be conserved. But this is not the only energy inherent in matter. Matter itself is energy, is matter, is energy - they're interchangeable. The massive burst of EM radiation from, say, an electron and positron annihilating, comes from E=Mc^2 + mc^2 , where M is the electron mass, m the positron. Since the magnitudes of M and m are the same (antiparticles), if M = -m, you would see NO energy released from the collision (except for a small amount from the potential) - this is negmatter, not antimatter. In real life, antimatter has to have positive mass to contain enough energy to release such a huge burst of radiation.

I think you trip up when you don't realize that matter is energy. They are absolutely interchangeable, so there's no problem with getting no "mass" out of the antimatter annihilation.
 
Dear Janus,

I think you are confusing energy (a scalar quantity) with charge (a vector field). If you have two vector fields that are exactly equal and opposite, the sum of the vector fields is a zero vector field. You say that the two fields are still there but there is no evidence remaining to detect them. How many electric fields then (equal and opposite) can be said to exist in any one region of space? This could be infinite but we are no longer concerned with charges because this strictly refers to a NET vector field directed radially inward or outward involving the electromagnetic interaction. The potential contained within this net force field is what we call electrical energy. I am presenting the idea that matter and energy aren't both scalar quantities. I am presenting the idea that mass is a vector field tranferring gravity whereas energy is a scalar quantity of a more fundamental level. You said yourself, electrical fields contain energy and therefore can release it when fields annihilate. We can define a formula relating energy and electric charge that applies as much to electromagnetism as Einstein's E=mc^2 applies to gravity. (Keep in mind the work-energy formula and potential energy formulas for electromagnetism. If neg-matter exists, then why doesn't particles and neg-particles constantly spring up out of nothing. If their product is nothing, then the process can be reversed and these would be produced from nothing. The result: a chaotic universe where life, let alone intelligent life, could never have existed. When calculating energy from any of these equations, an absolute value applies on the individual terms.

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Victor Sciortino
 
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