Anti-matter and Dark Matter (1 Viewer)

[747captain]

Thanks to everyone. I'm really learning here, I must admit! Never knew there was so many other particles! Geez, we could go on forever I guess.

St. Dominics... aah. Cool.
Googlepedia a bit more, then I'll post some crap that could be published as a dissertation (currently supposed to be rushing essays...).

Where the hell did that come from? One moment we're talking about subatomic particles which I was actually learning, and now the above quote comes up and I haven't a faintest idea what you're on about.

As Pauline Hanson would say: "Please explain?"

 

[Lucid Scintilla]

Where the hell did that come from? One moment we're talking about subatomic particles which I was actually learning, and now the above quote comes up and I haven't a faintest idea what you're on about.

The profile never lieees.

As Pauline Hanson would say: "Please explain?"

Irony much, cap'n?
Where the hell did that come from? One moment we're talking about subatomic particles and random matters, and now that above quote comes up and I haven't a faintest idea what you're on about.

Never mind, mate. Ease up. And sorry for deviating from the initial topic.

Never knew there was so many other particles!

... okay...

Links
hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/particles/lepton.html
www.isis.rl.ac.uk/aboutIsis/whatisaMuon.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_particles

Wikipedia's good for introductory learning; after you're done with that, proceed with uni books.

 

[xiao1985]

Hehe. No, no. I was about to make a defence of myself, then i realised that there's not alot worth arguing about.

I've been good too. Though at uni 9-5, mon-fri. Getting a feel of what is it like to be a lab slave =p

 

[darkchild69]

In a REAL brief nutshell

a) Anti-Matter:
When this type of material combines with "normal" matter, it often turns into pure energy, for example when a positron (the counterpart of an electron) combines with an electron they can often just result in a photon of light possessing the amount of energy E = mc^2

b) Dark Matter:
Dark Matter is matter which does not reflect or emit light (Dark Matter is estimated to make up approx 97% of the universe's mass), although we cannot see it, we know it exists due to the gravitiational effects it has on objects which we can see.
Scientists are not exactly sure what Dark Matter is

 

[Rohanesburg]

In response to <!-- google_ad_section_start(weight=ignore) -->Kirjava's statement, quarks can exist as isolate particles. They have been proven theoretically to exist as point like particles at very high energies, so high that they are currently unseen in modern-day colliders. They have also been postulated to exist in so-called "quark-stars". <!-- google_ad_section_end --><SCRIPT type=text/javascript> vbmenu_register("postmenu_2959276", true); </SCRIPT>

 

[kurt.physics]

Scientists are not exactly sure what Dark Matter is

This is very true, but many have made postulations, in fact, one very interesting and very recent postulation on dark matter by Andrew Liddle is that the particle for dark matter is just left over "inflatons"!

As the name suggests, inflatons are the particles that account for inflation, or so it has been postulated, but the real question is, how and why is this so. Liddle believes he has the answer.

But first, lets get more "info" on the inflaton, Liddle says "The inflaton has weird pressure properties that we don't see in everyday particles." This answers why the inflaton started inflation, but how did it come to become the dark matter particle.

Liddle suggests that inflatons would annihilate when they collide, so thats why there is hardly any left, but, he suggests that some still may exist.

After the period of inflation, the expansion rate has slowed down so that the particles mass becomes important, so they then behave as dark matter particles exhibiting gravitational attration.

Since the inflatons are now widely dispersed, there is little chance that they will come into contact with each other and annihilate today, or in the future. But if they do, they could create a detectable burst of high-energy radiation.

So it is an interesting proposal, experimental evidence is extremely tough while the theory is so promising, ha...sounds like string theory lol

I would be curious to see what Alan Guth has to say about this new theory
(Alan Guth, for those who don't know, is the "father" of the inflationary theory, that is to say, he was the first to propose it.)