Science question: What happens if you shoot an antihydrogen atom into a mercury atom?
The alchemist’s dream: Would the result be gold and 4 photons? The idea would be antiproton and positron annihilation stealing one proton and electron from the mercury atom (an isotope with 118 neutrons). Would the energy of the 4 photons in some way damage the gold atom breaking it up? If not, would this technology allow us to recycle dangerous mercury?
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Wouldn’t the result be radioactive gold? Perhaps it would be easier to slam platinum and hydrogen together to make gold. And if you wanted to recycle the mercury couldn’t you hit it with helium and make lead (a bit safer than thalium)? And you wouldn’t have to create any antimatter.
it will rip a hole into the space time continuum, creating an interdimensional wormhole and causing an invasion of aliens from the parallel universe.
@ragingloli – Ah, finally a place where we can safely dump our tubular-type compact fluorescent lamps when they go kaputt. It will even scare away the aliens.
@mattbrowne – Regardless of the method aren’t you basically instigating fission?
I’m with @AstroChuck on this one. It would create an isotope of gold and four photons.
The problem with this is that creating an antihydrogen atom is more complex than other nuclear processes to form gold. I’m not even sure we can get a positron to orbit an antiproton, or propel the whole thing at an appropriate speed to cause this reaction.
@AstroChuck and @FireMadeFlesh – Yes, it would be fission. But unlike the one in a nuclear power plant using uranium or plutonium. CERN has managed to create antihydrogen many years ago. See also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penning_trap
Speed is not an issue I think. Even a slow antihydrogen atom will react as soon as it leaves the vacuum and gets in contact with matter. I was wondering if the rest of a heavy atom can remain stable.
Yes, replicators are great. Can I borrow yours?
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