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On Wired Magazine.
During two recent lightning storms, Fermi recorded gamma-ray emissions of a particular energy that could only have been produced by the decay of energetic positrons, the antimatter equivalent of electrons. The observations are the first of their kind for lightning storms.
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Argos. Nice find. Not too surprising, considering the energies involved. The big surprise to me was the discovery that peeling scoth tape off a surface in vacuum produced x- rays. You never know who will find interesting "stuff".
see:http://www.bautforum.com/universe-to...ns-comets.html
Last edited by trinitree88; 2009-Nov-07 at 03:33 PM. Reason: link
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First reported 38 years ago.
You'll need a subscription to view the full text, but here is a subsequent letter to Nature, confirming that Ashby and Whitehead reported the characteristic 0.511 MeV gammas from positron/electron annihilation.
Are we seeing the Schwinger Effect, with an intense electric field generating electrons and positrons de novo? Or some kind of informal particle accelerator in action?
Grant Hutchison
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great.. now people are going to be even more afraid of lightning storms than they already are.. it creates antimatter, which we all know will destroy us all..
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But it also liberates nitrogen which feeds the plants which make our food...
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Antimatter Plants? ooer
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Well, since anti-matter is produced by natural processes it must be a good thing. I'm sure we'll see somebody marketing all-natural anti-sugar which will make you lose weight. Instant spectacular results!Originally Posted by novaderrik
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Chiral sugar produces spectacular results, all right, but not the kind you'd want to call home about...
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I've already got the advertising slogan:
Try Anti-Sugar (r). Prepare to be blown away!
As above, so below
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If only we could find a way to harness this energy, channel it, into the flux capacitor...
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This has some facinating implications. I'm curious now if a large enough Tesla coil , or other artifical lightning apperatus, might exihibt the same M/aM signature...
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There are some pretty large facilities for testing the behavior of things, like aircraft, when struck by lightning. It should be an easy enough thing to check. Of course, these facilities are only capable of energies at least an order of magnitude below a typical lightning strike, so a negative result would just mean it's time to build a bigger facility.
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Here's my antisugar slogan:
Eliminates that extra mass and gives you plenty of energy, without dieting !
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This could be a fun experiment...
I design Lightning protection systems, which are basically a fillial with a charge coupled plate - this attracts the lightning by producing an upleader. The fillial is then connected to a down conductor, and the down conductor is connected to a large earthing system. (Lightning Protection International)
So we insert the Huge Tesla Coil at the bottom of the down conductor, and try to collect the energy.... (mad scientist laugh...)
It's alive...
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Wouldn´t the energy signature be different in that case?
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Still the same gammas when they annihilate. No?
Grant Hutchison
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Seems like a reverse process.
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Schwinger just provides a source for the positrons. Thereafter, those positrons will encounter electrons (either the ones they were pair-produced with, or others) and annihilate. That will produce the same 0.511 MeV gammas as any other electron/positron annihilation.
Grant Hutchison
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Hmm, yes. Thanks.
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