22 MAR 2012 by ideonexus

 Production Costs for Antimatter

Fermilab produces antiprotons in medium-energy collisions of protons with a lithium target. Every now and then these collisions will produce an antiproton, which is then directed into the storage ring beneath the buffalo. When operating at average efficiency, Fermilab can produce about 50 billion antiprotons an hour in this way. Assuming that the Antiproton Source is operating about 75 percent of the time throughout the year, this is about 6000 hours of operation per year, so Fermilab produce...
Folksonomies: physics atomic collisions antimatter
Folksonomies: physics atomic collisions antimatter
  1  notes

Fermilab produces antiprotons in atomic collisions, here's how many and how much it costs to produce them.

A summary of points from this conference session about portraying scientists in fiction and getting science facts right:

  • Hollywood blockbusters carry so much weight, need to get more science into this medium
  • Scientists need to be telling their own stories. There are only about 120 books about scientists.
  • What does it mean for a story to accurately portay science? Getting scientific facts right? Or scientists reacting in a way scientists should react? Believes stories are about people, making them more important than the facts.
  • Star Trek: Starhip Mine: “terrorists steal MacGuffin juice from the warp core” Barrion sweep on the enterprise, but barrions are in all atoms. LOL Cats as up and down quarks. Maybe the Barrions in ST were exotic sub-space barrions. We can use the episode to teach proper science.
  • 2012 had a ridiculous premise, but the scientists were awesome.
  •  Michael Crighton: Climate Change book was silly, Andromeda Strain was silly
  • Jennifer: Percival’s Planet, example of good science story about the discovery of Pluto
  • Science presented without scientific process is just magic.
  • "Tron Legacy" was awful, but for me Tron, had Unix commands, mentioned genetic algorithms, I got much more enjoyment out of the film than the average viewer. Would including something about the game of life or evolving programs through natural selection make the film more interesting? The screenwriters were obviously familiar with the concepts, why did they shy away from giving the film more depth?