how does antimatter produce energy?
475255
It doesn't. Only when it comes in contact with "regular" matter does it produce energy.\n\nAntimatter functions exactly like "normal" matter except everything is the opposite. When matter and antimatter touch each other, they release an amazing amount of energy (waaay more than nuclear fusion) and a slew of subatomic particles.
992429
Hi bornsmartgal\n\nThe antimatter created in the very early universe annihilated with matter created at the same time.  When a matter particle and its antimatter counterpart meet the annihilate and produce energy (eg a collision between an electron and positron produces two back to back photons).  In the early universe there was a small over abundance of matter over antimatter (one billion and one matter particles for every one billion antimatter particles).  After the annihilation this leaves matter left over (plus a billion photons for every matter particle!)\n\nThis initial over abundance of matter over antimatter is puzzling - the difference between matter and antimatter is a reversal of charge and particle physics is largely symmetrical to charge reversal. Physicists have been looking for an asymmetry in nature which will explain the over abundance, and have finally found a few such events (called charge-parity symmetry violations).  It appears nature isn't totally symmetrical after all.\n\n\nHope this helps!\nThe Chicken
21088
Anti-matter particles are particles that have the opposite charge of normal matter.  For example, a proton is a positively charged particle, it's opposite, a positron has the same properties but with a negative charge.  When a proton and positron come in contact, tremendous amounts of energy are released and the particles destroy each other.  \n\nIt is hoped that anti-matter reactors will be available some day.  However, anti-matter particles are very unstable and scientists have had little success in stabilizing them for more than a few nanoseconds before they cease to exist.
595862
I don't know what everyone else here is on but we've had fusion (hydrogen) weapons for decades. Fusion weapons are capable of destroying planets as there is no real limit to how powerful they can be. There are more powerful alternatives however. Matter-Antimatter reactions can be made vastly more powerful then fusion reactions since the masses are completely transformed into energy whereas only a small portion of mass is converted into energy in fusion reactions. The problem of course is that anti-matter is annihilated upon exposure to any matter so storing it is the biggest problem in making such an idea practical and it would probably never make it to bomb form let alone the problems people have making 1/1000th of a milligram of the stuff for any sustained period.
30716
if we can make particle accelarator as small as an electric generator, then we might be able to use anti matter energy.
266037
You can create electricity using an ionizing chamber. The source has to be relatively strong to create a minimal ammount of electricity. One downfall of gamma radiation is that it can be reduced significantly by dense particles. it would be economically non feasible. It is currently being used to determine material density by measuring the voltage produced at the ionization chamber. The higher the voltage, the less density the material is. Usually in the 0-5 volts range depending on the source bequerel.
819712
According to some recent research in the field of astrophysics, antimatter are particles that have the opposite charge of the particle that it corresponds to. For example, the antimatter of protons are anti-electrons (some refer to it as prolectrons) while for electrons are protrons. Theoretically, this types of particles no matter how illogical it sounds NEED to exists in nature for the sole reason of maintaining the law of conservation of mass. The way antimatter preserves this very essential law because constantly --- according to Quantum physics --- new particles pop out everywhere. Because this phenomenon defies the law of mass conservation and HAVE to exists in nature for it to work properly, antimatter need to fill in the gap. When new particles constantly pop out and disappear (the life of a particles can extends from a billionth of a second to infinity), antiparticles "bond" with them to neutralizes tha charge. For example, let's say a particle that has a positive charge appears out of nowhere in space, the antiparticle (which is a negatively type charge of the positively charge particle) "bonds" with the positively charge particles for their charge to become zero (1 + -1 = 0).\n     The darkness in the sky are nothing but void. It is just a space where nothing exists except particles poping out of nowhere. Also, it is a common misconception that the darkness in space are called dark matter because of what the name implies. However, dark matter in plain astrophysics definition (shortened) are matter that had been the product of the "creation" of the world and all of its after affect. For now, theses matter cannot be seen by our eyes nor any telescope out there, but it can be seen through complex geometry and calculus.\n     Light is considered to be a particle that has both the characteristic of a wave and particle. We call these characteristic as wave particle. \n     Also, as a side note, it's true that time doesn't exists in reality, but it DOES exists in its own different dimension. If you want to know why, post a question.
439626
Most of the naturally occuring stuff comes from unstable atoms.  When the balance between protrons and neutrons is out of whack, the atom will fly apart.  Depending on the atom, it will break apart in one of 3 ways, it will emit an electron (beta decay), part of the nucleus (alpha) or throw off an electromagnetic wave (gamma). \nGamma also commonly comes from high energy particle hitting the atmosphere and shattering atoms.  The interaction releases a shower of other particles some of which release gamma.  It's nothing to worry about as we evolved under these conditions and our bodies are build to handle it.
133982
The Sun produces energy through a process called "nuclear fusion." This is the same process that happens in a hydrogen bomb. The Sun converts hydrogen into helium, and that conversion process releases energy, mostly in the form of heat. The Sun "burns" about 600-million tons of hydrogen every second.
20450
Propulsion Techniques Anti-matter\n\nAnti-matter is explosive stuff! In a scientific sense, it is the opposite of the normal matter which comprises both us and our surroundings. Every type of particle in nature is thought to possess its own anti-particle – which will have the opposite charge to the particle itself. Originally theorised to exist by scientists in the first half of the 20th century, the fact that a matter/anti-matter reaction releases a hundred times more energy (per mass of fuel) than even the most powerful nuclear reaction quickly brought it to the attention of the science-fiction genre. “Star Trek” is probably the most obvious example of the basic use of anti-matter in science fiction. Star ships of the Federation use stores of anti-matter as their source of fuel, so that their ships are powered by a matter/anti-matter reaction. \n\nSometimes the use of anti-matter was as straightforward as being the ultimate rocket fuel, for example in the anti-matter rocket starships in Peter F. Hamilton's “The Nightsdawn Trilogy” (1990s). On other occasions, anti-matter has been viewed as the natural successor to nuclear reactors as the source of power of the future, a prime example being the “Starship Enterprise” from the 1960s television show “Star Trek” (not to mention its sequel series and film spin-offs). The “Enterprise” contained a central reactor core which powered the entire ship in which matter and anti-matter were mixed, releasing enough energy to boldly go where no-one had gone before! \n\nSome science-fiction authors have even asked what-if questions about anti-matter. In the book “Traces”, Stephen Baxter explores the idea that anti-matter might exist in space as large chunks of “anti-ice”, which could be mined and mixed with large volumes of normal water to provide, in the case of the story in question, an awful lot of steam power.
374022
There are already antimatters existing in and outside our galaxy. But the ratio of antimatter to matter is rather small. More often than not, when both matter and antimatter come together, large amount of energy is release. The energy emitted is large enough to create another particle.
185444
I assume you mean the whole facts about the anti-matter.  Well CERN does exist and people are trying to create anti-matter. We have produced elementary particles with particle accelerators but I'm not sure about anti-matter.  I would assume it could be held in place with a strong magnetic field though to stop it annihilating, however I seriously doubt they'd have containers which could be transported elsewhere with batteries that run down, that would be a rather stupid idea really.
370272
Yes. Radiant energy strikes the matter surface it repel electrons from the matter and it release heat energy.
1148812
There's a few parts to this question:\n\nCan we turn people into energy?\nYes; it's possible. If you had an equal amount of antimatter, you could annilate the human and get out twice the energy of the human (one lot from the human, one lot from the antihuman). You'd need antimatter, because destroying the subatomic particles that make up humans would violate certain conservation laws; you need to remove (or add) as much antimatter as you do matter.\n\nCan we send the information as a signal?\nThere's two parts to this; can we scan someone, and can we send the scanned information?\n\nScanning seems like it should be impossible due to Heisenburg's uncertainty principle; if you know where something is, you're not sure how fast it is moving, and vice versa. You'd need both pieces of information to classically scan the particle. \nHowever, there has been research into ways of doing so quantum mechanically, and apparently single subatomic particles have been teleported.\n\nHowever, there's an awful lot of particles in the human body; of the order of a billion billion billion, and that'd take a very long time to transfer over any sort of connection.\n\nPutting the pieces back together at the other end may also be tricky. And you don't want to lose any pieces!
665650
Antimatter is mainly useful because it has a very high energy density but to produce it you need to put in more energy than you can get out of it which is why about the only large scale uses would be spacecraft propulsion and weapons (with pretty much everyone with some sanity left prefering the first usage).\n\nYou would need to produce antimatter somewhere, Earth would do although if I were planning a large scale interstellar programme I'd be more inclined to set up a production plant close to the sun for the abundant energy there.  Current production using particle accelerators is at a very low rate although it seems to be largely because the accelerators were designed for high energy physics experiments and not antimatter production so some optimisation for antimatter production should allow the production rates to increase quite a bit and costs to come down (though it'll still be in short supply on Earth).\n\nAs for how antimatter rockets would work:\n\nSome of them would fire the antimatter at something to heat it up and expel another propellent, say hydrogen, this has the advantage of requiring less antimatter but also causes a loss of performance with some of them even having inferior performance to much safer nuclear fission rockets.  Higher performance comes from the Beam Core design in which the products of the proton+antiproton reaction and sent directly out the back of the spacecraft though this requires a lot of antimatter.\n\nSome other proposals use very small amounts of antimatter to cause a fission or fusion reaction (or both) that otherwise could not have occured to provide propulsion.
919946
There is no reason to believe that there weren't equal amounts of matter and antimatter after the big bang. However, there is a difference between the way matter and antimatter interact. It has to do with a complex symmetry in physics called CP (charge-parity).\nThe difference allowed abut one in every billion matter particles to avoid annihilation.
480675
no. depending on the exact details its either inverse beta decay or electron capture. both release energy in very small amounts tho, in the form of radiation.