Issue 85 / January - February 2012 Towards the dream of Star
Trek: Antimatter M. Fatih Yilmaz In physics, matter is defined
as the composition of particles such as electrons, protons, and
neutrons. Antimatter is composed of antiparticles such as anti-
electrons (positrons) and antiprotons (protons with negative
charges). The existence of antimatter was suggested in 1928 by
Paul Dirac and was confirmed experimentally in 1932 by Carl D.
Anderson. They state that every elementary particle (matter) has
its own anti-particle (antimatter): electrons have anti-
electrons (positrons) and protons have anti-protons and so on.
Antimatters have the same mass as matter, but they carry an
opposite electrical charge . For that reason, if matter and
antimatter collide they cancel each other out, resulting in
annihilation. This collision produces a tremendous amount of
energy. For instance, a collision of 1 kg of matter and
antimatter releases the energy equivalent to the explosion of 43
megatons of TNT . However, producing ant